Bishop says Reid killed nuke-waste strategy

WASHINGTON — Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., was openly displeased when Utah's two Republican senators sided with the White House's plan to ship the nation's stockpile of high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain northwest of Las Vegas — especially after Nevada had supported Utah's opposition to identical wastes.

But would Reid, in retribution, torpedo a Utah plan to block the same wastes from going to Goshute tribal lands in Tooele County?

"Not technically, but yeah, Harry Reid killed it," said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the sponsor of the legislation he said is needed to ensure the viability of the Utah Test and Training Range and Hill Air Force Base. "He just got somebody else to do it."

Reid, the newly elected Democratic leader in the Senate, vigorously denied the allegation that he intervened last month to block a rider to the Defense Reauthorization Act that would have designated the Bureau of Land Management lands around Skull Valley as wilderness, potentially blocking the construction of a rail spur needed to transport the waste to tribal lands.

"It's just not true," said Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen. "It's absolutely not true. It has nothing to do with (retribution for the Utah senators' votes on) Yucca Mountain."

Reid was not on the conference committee and in no position to directly influence the final language of the bill, Hafen said.

But he did oppose the legislation because he said it was bad policy to designate wilderness — something created by Congress under a law that clearly states it is to be open to the public — and then turn the management of the wilderness over to the U.S. Air Force, as Bishop's legislation specified.

"The Air Force would have the discretion to change the rules on access; and that is just bad wilderness policy," Hafen said.

She maintains Reid is opposed to the transportation of waste on the nation's roads and rails, whether it is to Utah or to Nevada. And in that sense, he supports Utah's fight to keep the waste out of the Beehive State.

So if Reid didn't kill Bishop's legislation, then who did? Hafen said Nevada's other senator, Republican John Ensign, "worked really hard to kill it."

"He took it up for Harry Reid," Bishop said. "The entire goal of the Nevada delegation is to find anything that is an alternative to Yucca Mountain. If Utah is on the table, then Yucca Mountain is less viable."

Ensign's office did not return calls.

Meanwhile, the Yucca Mountain project remains Congress' preferred nuclear waste repository. In a compromise Friday lawmakers budgeted $577 million this fiscal year for Yucca Mountain, the same amount as last year but about a third less than the Energy Department said was required to keep the nuclear waste storage program on track.