There may be several sets of fireworks in tonight's debate, but I think the brightest display will be over a local environmental issue with national implications: Yucca Mountain.
Blitzer and panel members Campbell Brown and John Roberts, also of CNN, plan to include questions about Western concerns, and in the second hour of the debate, all of the questions will be asked by locals.
A handpicked pool of about 100 undecided Nevada Democrats will occupy a special section of the audience, where CNN's Suzanne Malveaux will call on them to put their concerns directly to the candidates
With both CNN and, presumably, Nevadans focusing on local issues, Yucca Mountain is sure to come up at least once. All of the candidates have some history with the issue, and most of their histories are a bit cloudy.
Follow me over the jump for a brief history of Yucca Mountain and a summary of where the candidates stand.
Research at Yucca Mountain began in 1978 to determine if the site could be used as a repository. What's a repository?
For more than two decades, the Project conducted an extensive scientific effort to determine whether Yucca Mountain, Nevada is a suitable site for a deep underground facility called a repository. The purpose of a repository is to safely isolate highly radioactive nuclear waste for at least 10,000 years.
The project has been slowed by numerous delays, and it still faces several hurdles before it can be used. Despite being in the works for over 20 years, Yucca Mountain remains a hot topic in Nevada.
Here's a brief history of the project: In 1978, DOE began looking at Yucca Mountain as a potential site, and further research for Yucca and other sites was ordered in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The Act was amended in 1987 to focus research solely on Yucca Mountain. In the 1992 Energy Policy Act, Congress told the EPA to develop environmental standards for the site. In 2000, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act, which would have enacted the following:
Proposes the establishment of a nuclear waste storage repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain by 2007, if granted a construction permit by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
Authorizes the Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary to determine if the proposed site is appropriate for nuclear waste storage and make a recommendation to the President by December 31, 2001
Grants the President power to decide whether to recommend the proposed site to Congress by March 31, 2002
Authorizes the NRC to decide whether to build the repository by January 31, 2006
President Clinton vetoed the bill:
President Clinton this evening vetoed a bill that would have required the Energy Department to move nuclear waste to Nevada before a repository it plans to build there had been completed.
Under commercial contracts between the electric utilities and the government, the department was supposed to begin accepting nuclear waste for disposal in January 1998. Its current plan is to begin accepting waste in 2010 at the earliest. But its plan for developing a repository at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles from Las Vegas, has a highly uncertain schedule and cost.
''The bill passed by the Congress will do nothing to advance the scientific program at Yucca Mountain or promote public confidence in the decision of whether or not to recommend the site for a repository,'' the president said regarding his veto.
The bill would have blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing radiation standards for the repository until the next president takes office. It would also have stripped the energy secretary of his ability to unilaterally increase fees charged to the utilities for development of the repository.
The Senate attempted to override the veto but fell three votes short, 64-35.
Bush brought the bill back in 2002, Congress passed it, and Bush signed it. In an unusual situation, Nevada had the right to veto the bill. He did so, but the veto was overridden in Congress.
The day's Senate vote took place under unusual procedures established in a 1982 act about the site search and subsequent legislation. In highly unusual deference to a state, Congress gave Nevada the power to veto any presidential decision about Yucca Mountain. After President Bush approved the site, Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, exercised that veto in April.
Yucca Mountain is tentatively scheduled to open for business in 2017, but the project still faces several roadblocks.
Now to the political stuff: where have the candidates come down on the issue?
Hillary Clinton
Clinton was First Lady while the project was being researched and when President Clinton vetoed the 2000 bill to start building the site, but I haven't read anything that hints at her involvement in the issue. She voted against overriding Governor Guinn's veto.
She's been speaking out against Yucca Mountain for awhile now, but she's increased the focus by mentioning her vote against the site in the September 27th debate and by detailing her opposition in a recent Senate hearing:
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton indirectly courted Nevada voters during a Senate hearing Wednesday by bashing a radioactive waste dump planned for their state.
"Yucca Mountain is not the answer," Clinton told a packed hearing of the Environment and Public Works Committee held at her request.
"I believe we need to start over," she said.
You can read her whole statement at the hearing here.
She's vowed to cut funding for the project as President, but she has expressed interest in further research into nuclear power in general--which means finding another solution for waste storage.
John Edwards
Edwards voted for the 2000 Yucca Mountain bill that President Clinton subsequently vetoed, and he voted again to override the veto. In 2002, he voted to override Governor Guinn's veto of the project.
After selecting Edwards as his running mate in 2004, John Kerry tried to distance himself from Edwards on the Yucca issue:
Republicans said the North Carolina senator's vote supporting the nuclear waste repository softens Kerry's criticism of the Bush administration, which advocated the Yucca Mountain site. But Democrats quickly lined up behind Edwards after receiving a pledge he would defer to Kerry on the issue.
"Unlike with the Bush administration, the vice president's not in charge in a Kerry administration," said state Sen. Dina Titus, the state's Democratic National Committeewoman.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., spoke with Edwards and Kerry shortly after the announcement and said he received assurances that Edwards would defer to Kerry's Yucca stance. Kerry has pledged that the mountain 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas will not hold a repository if he is elected president.
Edwards has since come out strongly against the project. He has explained his vote by talking about the need of North Carolina nuclear plants to store their waste outside the state and blaming faulty science used to support the safety of the facility.
Edwards came out against the site to support Kerry in 2004, and he's used his staunch anti-nuclear power position to go after Clinton on the issue of nuclear waste.
"Sen. Clinton again is trying to have it both ways by asking for a hearing to delay the Yucca Mountain project while declaring herself agnostic on nuclear energy," Edwards said.
Barack Obama
Obama wasn't in the Senate for the Yucca votes. He submitted a written statement in opposition to the site for the recent Senate hearing:
In short, the selection of Yucca Mountain has failed, the time for debate on this site is over, and it is time to start exploring new alternatives for safe, long-term solutions based on sound science.
Obama, like Clinton, supports further research into nuclear power and waste storage. One problem for Obama may be his Campaign National Co-Chair Federico Peña. Pena was supportive of Yucca Mountain when he was Energy Secretary, but he has come out in favor of Obama's current opposition to Yucca.
How will it all play out tonight? I'm not sure who will be on the attack on the issue, but I'd bet at least one of the frontrunners and one of the second-tier candidates comes out firing. Clinton could use voting records against Edwards, but she has thus far refrained from going after his Senate record. Edwards could say this is an issue about the future and go after Clinton and Obama for their refusal to denounce nuclear power. Clinton and Obama have both taken money from the nuclear industry, which could be exploited by any of several candidates.
(Note: All of the candidates have issued many statements on this issue, and I simply didn't have the time or space to include them. I wasn't trying to leave them out. If you think the diary is misleading or lacking, please feel free to post additional information.)