Vote on GOP energy plan would put two Nevadans in a pickle

By Lisa Mascaro

Sunday, Sept. 14, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley has been reading the fine print on the Republicans’ “All of the Above” energy plan.

Turns out, buried in the plan House Republicans have been pushing all summer is a provision to step up funding for Yucca Mountain.

More than 100 House Republicans, including Nevada’s Jon Porter and Dean Heller, gave up part of their August recess to return to Washington to protest Democrats’ refusal to consider the Republican energy plan, whose centerpiece is more domestic oil drilling.

Democrats have long opposed off-shore drilling in protected areas (oil companies already have permission to drill in unprotected areas). Offshore drilling has been a particularly toxic issue in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s California ever since the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969.

Yet, with high gas prices still a top voter concern, and continued pressure from Republicans, Democrats are relenting. The bill Democrats are expected to bring to the floor this week will offer limited drilling in some additional coastal waters.

Republican leaders say the Democratic plan does not go far enough to meet the nation’s energy needs. They will continue to push their bill.

But would Porter and Heller, who oppose Yucca Mountain, as do all of Nevada’s other lawmakers in Washington, really want to vote on their party’s plan? It includes a provision weakening one of the best tools the state has in fighting the proposed nuclear waste dump 90 miles north of Las Vegas — lawmakers’ ability to starve the project of needed money.

Every year the Bush administration requests vast sums for its Energy Department to continue developing the dump. And every year Nevada’s lawmakers in Washington, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, substantially slash that request. It’s been a cat and mouse game for years.

Last year Reid was so successful, cutting more than 20 percent from the project, that the Energy Department ended daily access to the site, cut its workforce and stopped offering public tours.

For years the nuclear industry and the Energy Department have tried to pass bills to allow the Yucca Mountain project to have access to more funding.

Yucca’s project director, Edward Sproat, has repeatedly told Congress one of the best ways it could help push Yucca Mountain forward would be to allow the department to tap more fully into the project’s account.

The Yucca Mountain account has grown to more than $27 billion over the past 20-plus years. Funding comes in at a rate of $750 million a year, from a fee paid by utility customers in communities that rely on nuclear power.

Sproat says he needs access to at least $1 billion a year as the project heads toward construction. He’s been getting only about half that now from Congress.

Berkley spent much of last week shining a spotlight on the bill’s ramifications for Nevada.

“The House Republican energy plan isn’t drill, baby, drill — it’s dump, baby, dump,” she said in a statement early in the week.

Days later her office stepped it up with this missive: “When House Republicans say ‘All of the Above’ on energy, you can be sure that means billions more for Yucca Mountain and changes that will make it harder for Nevada to win its battle against becoming the nation’s nuclear dump,” Berkley said in the news release.

“Republicans want to make Nevada a trash can for the nuclear industry,” she went on. “They cannot wait to get toxic radioactive waste to Nevada given the chance.”

The Republican plan probably will not get a vote on the floor, despite the party’s protests.

One of the limitations of being in the minority is that the majority party gets to set the rules. The Democratic plan will likely be the one brought to the floor.

The vote Republicans are pushing so hard to get may be one that Heller and Porter would rather not cast.