HIGH-LEVEL VOTE

Sometime before their August recess, the Senate must decide whether to proceed with decades-old plans to store high-level nuclear waste in a central location or abandon billions of dollars in research and leave the radioactive waste at more than a hundred sites around the country. It is time to get this project moving again.

For years, President Clinton deferred to Nevada Democrat Harry Reid, now majority whip, and wrongly delayed decisions about the central storage location at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The Department of Energy identified this site nearly 30 years ago as an ideal location and has been working there since 1978, spending more than $8 billion on this and other sites to determine the safest place to store the waste.

Yucca Mountain, because of the stability of the region, the lack of rain, the depth of the water table and scores of other reasons, was chosen in 1987 as the sole site. And while scientific progress confirming the decision and refuting arguments against it has gone on since then, the politics has stalled, costing energy consumers and creating uncertainty in all states with nuclear power plants.

Maine Yankee will move its spent fuel rods – its high-level waste – from their cooling pool this summer and place them in dry casks on site. The casks and their cost and, especially these days, their security against terrorism are necessary because of the long delays at Yucca Mountain. Even if the site were to be approved today, the final casks at Maine Yankee will be at the Wiscasset site through at least 2020.

President Bush earlier this year finally got the program moving again when he forwarded to Congress the Department of Energy recommendation to develop the repository at Yucca Mountain. Nevada’s governor, as expected, protested this decision. In May, the House voted 306-117, with Maine Reps. John Baldacci and Tom Allen in the majority, to override this objection. The Senate has until July 27 to vote on the issue, with Majority Leader Tom Daschle expected to give Sen. Reid as much time as possible to make his case against using the site.

The Department of Energy has been working on the Yucca Mountain site for so long that it has no backup plan. If the Senate does not support this site, states for the next several decades at least will play host to a growing number of high-level waste sites. This was never the deal worked out between the federal government and the states. More than 20 years ago, legislation co-authored by then-Rep. Olympia Snowe split the responsibility for waste: low level for states, high level for the feds. The states have taken care of their part of the bargain. Ratepayers have contributed a total of $15 billion to cover the cost of storage. Now it is the federal government’s responsibility to prepare to take the high-level waste.

Maine’s Sens. Snowe and Susan Collins are in favor of moving forward, as are most Republicans. Democrats are less certain, but most of them also come from states with nuclear power and a need to store high-level waste. After

so many years of needless delay, the Senate should end the pretense that there are further issues to debate on the subject and schedule a vote on Yucca Mountain without further delay.