U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) yesterday said he might not be able to block a vote to overturn Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn’s expected veto of the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain (see GSN, March 19).

Once Guinn issues his veto on President George W. Bush’s approval of Yucca Mountain as the site for a spent-fuel repository, as Guinn has said he will do, the issue goes before Congress.  Both houses must overturn Guinn’s veto by a simple majority within 90 days for the project to go forward.

Daschle said he had incorrectly believed he could block the Yucca Mountain plan by requiring a 60-vote majority.  He added that he has recently learned about a provision in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act — the mandate for a U.S. repository — that only requires a simple majority vote (see GSN, March 7).

“When I said in Nevada many months ago that, as long as Democrats were in control, it was not going to be an issue that had much viability, I was not aware that this legislation — when we drafted it decades ago — is under an expedited procedure,” Daschle said, adding that this means any senator can call it to the floor for a simple majority vote.

So far, only two Senate Republicans, John Ensign of Nevada and Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, have come out against the Yucca Mountain plan, Daschle said (Reuters/Washington Times, March 21).

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