DATE: Tuesday, November 4, 1997             TAG: 9711040273

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B12  EDITION: FINAL 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:  109 lines

ROLL CALL: HOW MEMBERS OF CONGRESS VOTED

Here's how area members of Congress were recorded on major roll call votes in the week ending Oct. 31. HOUSE

Nuclear waste: Voting 307-120, the House passed a bill (HR 1270) designating U.S. property near Yucca Mountain, Nev., 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to begin receiving the nation's nuclear waste by 2002 for temporary storage. Radioactive material from scores of commercial power plants and military facilities would be stored there, above-ground, until permanent underground burial begins in 2015 or later at a nearby site. Tens of thousands of metric tons of waste would be shipped to the remote site by rail and truck.

Fred Upton, R-Mich., said: ``Today in this country, we have 10 sites that have run out of room. They have re-racked their rods, built these lead-lined cement canisters that are literally stacked in the dunes of Lake Michigan and other places around the country. . . . And next year we're going to have 27 more reactors run out of room. It is time for this Congress to act to send it to one safe place.''

Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said the bill means ``the taxpayers will buy a nuclear pig-in-the-poke waste dump and be stuck with it forever. There is no known technology which can safely isolate the waste from the biosphere. Fifty million Americans will live within a half-mile of transportation routes . . . (which) insures that there will be a significant hazard to populated areas. The safety issues have not been adequately met in this legislation.''

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Bateman yes Pickett yes

Scott yes Sisisky yes

Clayton yes Jones yes

Contract With America: By a vote of 135-290, the House refused to apply the Contract With America to legislation (HR 1270, above) to store the nation's nuclear waste near Yucca Mountain, Nev. When House Republicans adopted that policy manifesto in 1995, they declared that major federal actions affecting health, safety, and the environment should clear scientific ``risk-assessment'' and ``cost-benefit'' hurdles before taking effect. The provision was approved by a 2-to-1 margin in the House but died in the Senate. This amendment sought to revive it and apply it to legislation allowing more than 30,000 metric tons of nuclear waste to be shipped for storage in a remote area of Nevada.

John Ensign, R-Nev., said: ``Let us just stick to the principle in the Contract With America that we all . . . signed in 1994 on the steps of the Capitol.''

Fred Upton, R-Mich., said the amendment ``would stop the nuclear waste program in its tracks and would prevent the Department of Energy from taking any action for years.''

A yes vote was to add Contract With America language to a nuclear waste bill.

Bateman no Pickett no

Scott no Sisisky no

Clayton no Jones no

Grazing fees: By a vote of 208-212, the House rejected an amendment requiring large corporate ranching operations to pay higher federal grazing fees than family ranches pay. This occurred during debate on a bill (HR 2493) raising fees for the thousands of ranches that graze livestock on 261 million federal acres in the West. As later passed, the bill requires permit holders to begin paying at least $1.84 per AUM (animal units per month), up 36 percent from the present rate but below market prices. The rejected amendment sought to require operations grazing more than 2,000 AUM to pay fees at least 25 percent higher than those charged family ranches.

Bruce Vento, D-Minn., said it was wrong that ``giant corporations . . . oil companies . . . insurance companies run operations five times the size of family farm ranches and pay the same low, subsidized rate. It's not fair to family ranchers and it's not fair to the American taxpayers.''

Charles Stenholm, D-Tex., said ``my opposition . . . lies in the fact that nearly 50 percent of western lands are owned by the federal government. . . . My concern is that we do not disrupt normal marketing arrangements, normal business practices. . . . I am of the opinion there is not an unfair subsidy'' in federal grazing fees.

A yes vote was to charge higher livestock grazing fees to larger operations.

Bateman no Pickett no

Scott didn't vote Sisisky no

Clayton yes Jones no SENATE

Line-item veto: Voting 69-30, the Senate achieved the two-thirds majority needed to block President Clinton's veto of 38 spending items in the fiscal 1998 military construction appropriations bill. If the House also passes the disapproval measure (S 1292), the spending will proceed. This was Congress's first vote on overriding new presidential power to veto specific parts of an overall spending bill.

Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said: ``For over 200 years, the Senate has exercised its constitutional authority to write and pass the laws of the land. But today that tradition will be momentarily set aside (as) . . . the Senate completes the abdication of legislative power that began last spring'' when line-item veto authority was enacted.

Dale Bumpers, D-Ark., said he disliked the item veto but would vote with the president on this occasion because ``I want to make it so painful to support the line-item veto that when we come to our senses and legislation comes up to repeal . . . (it) will be passed 100 to nothing. So the more pain we inflict, the more likely that is to occur.''

A yes vote supported spending for 38 vetoed projects in 23 states.

Robb no Warner yes

Helms yes Faircloth yes ILLUSTRATION: Photos of area congressmen

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