Editorial: Congress guts state oversight

THE state Interim Finance Committee has given $240,000 in emergency funding for the watchdog agency investigating the federal government's study of Nevada as a potential home for high-level nuclear waste.

But the fact is the amount is a pittance considering that the nuclear power industry's clout in Congress has killed all federal funding for Nevada's oversight of the Yucca Mountain project, meaning that the state will be able to do little more than keep open the doors of the state Nuclear Projects Office.

The head of the Nuclear Projects Office, Bob Loux, said the funding level will not be enough to allow his agency to critically examine and comment on upcoming reports by the U.S. Energy Department. Loux had asked for $810,000 to pay for staff and consultants who evaluate the Energy Department's work to get it through the early months of 1999.

Some of those upcoming reports could be pivotal. For instance, the Energy Department is going to release a report on whether Yucca Mountain is feasible for the dump. And in early 1999, the Energy Department will release its draft environmental statement on the dump's location.

But Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said there wasn't enough money available to fully fund Loux's request. To be fair, a number of other important projects that requested funding from the Interim Finance Committee also had their requests cut. But it's a shame that more money couldn't be found because the prospect of 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste headed to Yucca Mountain is a real threat to the public safety of Nevadans.

The villains in this are the nuclear power industry and its advocates in the U.S. Congress, which has not allocated any money for state oversight for two years. Congress is supposed to provide this funding, but Nevada has lost $691,000 in federal funds because an audit asserted it misspent money, a claim that Loux and state officials dispute.

This process, almost nearly from the beginning, has targeted Nevada unfairly. And as more pressure mounts on Congress from the nuclear power industry to find a home for nuclear waste, the study will become even more tilted to political expediency, not scientific research.

It's wrong that congressional advocates of the nuclear power industry have cut off funding for the state Nuclear Projects Office, but the state just can't sit by idly while the Energy Department starts wrapping up its work. Now is the time for more funding, not less. If federal funds aren't forthcoming again this year, the 1999 Nevada Legislature should appropriate state funds to provide valuable oversight of an inherently flawed process.

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