Tyrus W. Cobb: When in doubt ... form a commission

The first rule in Washington, when faced with a vexing political issue, is to form a commission to study the problem. Thus, "Harry Ensign" have come up with the idea of creating a nine-member commission to devise a plan for the disposition of nuclear waste piling up from reactor sites and defense weapons programs.

The second rule is to know precisely what conclusion you want that commission to arrive at. The last thing any skilled Beltway insider wants to happen is to have a rogue task force that may not be sufficiently attentive to the impetus behind the creation of the commission, and go off on its own.

Then the third rule, obviously, is to select members for that commission who will diligently study the issue at hand, not by searching independently for data, opinions and recommendations, but by following the direction of the professional staff that will guide the deliberations.

Thus we have the proposed National Commission on Management of High Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel, an idea that Nevada senators Harry Reid and John Ensign have forwarded to assist in the effort to stop Yucca Mountain from becoming the nation's repository.

The commission concept is in reality an acknowledgement by the senators that, despite recent statements by President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu that "Yucca is dead," in fact the repository is limping along. The commission is also a reaction to growing sentiment within Nevada that the state should halt its opposition to the Yucca site.

While the Congressional representation and state officials hold fast to the state's long-held opposition, polls show public opinion has shifted in favor of either accepting the site, or better, treating Yucca as an interim storage site.

The latter concept, embodied in a bill proposed by Assemblyman Ty Cobb, Jr., (son of this writer) would call on the government and nuclear industry to reprocess the waste on-site, thus eliminating more than 90 percent of it, and construct a state- of-the-art R&D center for advanced research on alternative energy concepts.

If the Nevada delegation really wanted to finish off Yucca as the national repository, it would take two steps. The first would be to demand that Obama and Chu withdraw the license application to open Yucca that has already been sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The second would ask Congress to overturn the legislation that designated Yucca as the repository, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. That "Harry Ensign" and our Congressmen have not done so is recognition that they do not have the votes to overturn the governing legislation.

Thus, this commission is born. The nine-member commission would be established according to the "rules" I outlined above. Rather than having a commission convened under the authority of the National Academy of Sciences, or even the Department of Energy, this would be a Congressional commission consisting of five individuals appointed by Sen. Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and another four by the Republican leadership.

No word as to who would staff the commission " the key to what the eventual conclusions will be " but we can surmise that they will be carefully screened for their positions on the nuclear waste disposition issue.

The commission idea hasn't gotten much support within Congress. In the interim, while Congress dithers, nuclear waste continues to pile up at more than 160 locations. The nuclear industry has coughed a few times and declared this alternative safe for the short term.

What else are they going to say? That it is a terrible alternative compared to storage at a secure desert installation away from population centers? That could cripple the industry and halt nuclear power generation in its tracks. Hence, they are sucking it down and reluctantly endorsing the least-worst alternative.

The citizens of the U.S. and Nevada deserve better than this charade.

- Tyrus W. Cobb served as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan for national security affairs.