With the House on recess, Senate committees began holding hearings and Nevada Democrats reintroduced a bill to halt any administration action on Yucca Mountain. When both chambers return at the end of the month, members will begin pursuing bipartisan legislation – so I caught up with some members on their approach to it.

Moderate Nevada Dems’ approach to bipartisanship

In divided government, any legislation that makes its way to the president’s desk will be, by definition, bipartisan. 

Some of these bills – such as the Farm Bill, which authorizes agricultural subsidies and school lunch spending – work on annual cycles and have a history of bipartisan support. Other big-ticket items that Congress will need to agree on include the debt ceiling, Ukraine aid and annual appropriations on issues ranging from defense to energy. It’s also an opportunity for Congress’ centrists to use their inter-party relationships to prove that operating from the middle is a fruitful approach.

For Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV), a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus and one of the most bipartisan members of the House – measured by how often she introduces or co-sponsors legislation with Republicans – it’s a chance to flex some political muscle.

Lee is in the leadership of Problem Solvers – a group evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats who promote bipartisanship and do not campaign against one another. She co-chairs the Bipartisan Women’s Caucus. And in a workplace where Republicans and Democrats even segregate themselves in committee seating, Lee hopes to use this session of Congress to show bipartisan relationships still have value.

Lee said bipartisanship means two things to her – starting negotiations from discovering what members agree on rather than what their red lines are and maintaining relationships with (mainly moderate) Republicans to see where they can collaborate.

“You have to have an understanding that we all represent various constituencies,” Lee said. “[It’s about] being able to have the conversation so you can understand where people are coming from, even if you don’t agree.”

Part of that process is identifying what issues Lee might have in common with some Republican districts. Drought, for example, is a problem across the West – making it an area of interest for Republicans in Arizona and Utah with whom Lee could not otherwise work on health care.

Rosen enjoys a reputation of being a behind-the-scenes bipartisan deal seeker without isolating her liberal colleagues. She also says bipartisan progress happens on the strength of relationships.

“This is how I’ve been able to pass bipartisan bills into law that strengthen the tourism industry, help reduce maternal mortality, increase health care access in rural communities and so much more,” she said in a statement. “I will continue working across party lines to help solve problems we face and to see that Nevada’s hardworking families get ahead.”

Several bipartisan bill introductions have come out of dinners with Republicans, she said. For example, a dinner with Rep. David Joyce (R-OH) yielded a working relationship that has led to co-introductions of several bills to improve health care access in rural areas. Veterans’ issues have also proven to be ripe for finding Republican partners.

Most of Lee’s bipartisan coalition partners are moderates, including Joyce, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), or Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA). She said they can often bond over frustrations with their respective parties’ leadership advancing legislation to appease their more extreme wings.

Though she embraces bipartisanship, Lee does make distinctions. House Republicans, she said, have begun the session with messaging bills rather than working on areas of bipartisanship. In the prior Congress, centrist Democrats including Lee spent much of the first year working with Republicans on the infrastructure package.

“There seems to be a lack of a cohesive agenda,” she said. “That agenda is probably not one that I’m going to be too thrilled about.”

But she said there are a number of areas where she expects bipartisan action if Republican leadership decides to pursue it. Mental health funding is an area where she expects action, and immigration reform is always on the minds of those who frequently cross the aisle, although congressional inaction has remained entrenched.

In the Senate, where the 60-vote filibuster threshold necessitates bipartisanship, Rosen said she anticipates legislation on travel and tourism, addressing the doctor shortage, improving veterans’ care and services and addressing a number of eligibility and bureaucratic hurdles for Small Business Administration loans and licenses.

Nevada delegation renews push to permanently shut down Yucca Mountain

The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository project has been dead for years. But Nevada’s congressional Democrats are not breathing a sigh of relief quite yet. Instead, they want to codify a consent-based process for nuclear waste storage to ensure no future operations occur without sign-off from the state.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) each introduced the Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act in their respective chambers, with Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Reps. Susie Lee (D-NV) and Steven Horsford (D-NV) signed on as co-sponsors. Titus first introduced the bill in 2015 with Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV).

“Over more than three decades and at every step in the process, the Yucca Mountain Project has sputtered because Nevadans just don’t want nuclear waste stored in our state,” Titus said in a statement. “We must codify the protection of their voices into law to protect the health and safety of our communities and guarantee a process that honors the consent of state, local, and tribal leaders. Nevada is not a waste land.”

The legislation would require the secretary of energy to receive written permission from the governor, any relevant local governing bodies and tribes in the state in which the Department of Energy (DOE) seeks to license a nuclear waste facility.

The debate began in 1987 with the so-called “Screw Nevada” bill, an act of Congress that instructed the DOE to only study the Yucca Mountain site as a place for nuclear storage despite the existence of other sites identified by the department in the 1980s. 

In the decades since, the federal government has poured billions of dollars into studying the site but has not dumped nuclear waste there, after a series of legal challenges, delays, and political pressure from Reid. Reid continually killed any efforts to fund and license the project, which has remained unpopular with Nevadans, through his control of the Senate floor and his extraction of promises from Democratic presidents to abandon it.

The issue came back up during the Trump years when Republican control of government meant licensing could get off the ground. Trump included funding for licensing in his budget and the House passed the appropriation. But it died in the Senate as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell kept the bill from getting a vote to protect then-Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), who was up for re-election (and lost) in 2018. 

The House Appropriations Committee tried to provide funding once again via an amendment in 2019 but it was defeated by a one-vote margin, with Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) being the only Republican to vote no and Nevada House Democrats convincing enough colleagues to oppose it.

Efforts by Nevada Democrats to include a consent provision similar to the one proposed in the Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act have been consistently rejected.

“Nevadans have made it crystal clear that they don’t want a permanent nuclear waste dump in their backyard,” Cortez Masto said in a statement. “I’ve opposed every attempt to restart the failed Yucca Mountain project, and will continue to champion this legislation that respects the voices of our state, local, and tribal governments in Nevada that have been silenced by an unworkable process.”

After the 2017 and 2019 failures, the Trump administration then abandoned the project. In 2021, Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, during questioning from Cortez Masto, said the Biden administration opposes using Yucca Mountain and approves of a consent-based model.

Though the project is dead for now, Lee listed keeping nuclear waste out of the ground first when naming her priorities for this session of Congress.

“We’ve always got to be on the defense on that,” Lee said in a recent interview.

Lombardo to accept gun safety grant

The Department of Justice announced a nearly $3.1 million grant to the Nevada Department of Public Safety (DPS) on Tuesday as part of gun safety and mental health funding for states designated in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022.

The funding can be used for court-based crisis intervention programs such as red flag laws, which allow a family member or law enforcement officer to file a court petition to remove an individual’s firearms for a year. Nevada passed a red flag law in 2019. In addition, the funds can go toward law enforcement for safe gun storage programs and behavioral health treatment. 

“Nevada ranks #51 for both adults and youth measures, experiencing a higher prevalence of mental illness and lower rates of access to care,” the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s release said. “With mental health as a catalyst for some gun violence, resources may be used to increase services for those at risk and in crisis.”

The funding will go to the DPS’ Office of Criminal Justice Assistance (OCJA), but will be delayed because the agency must first develop a “State Crisis Intervention Advisory Board/Working Group” to take on planning and budgeting. 

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office said he will accept the grant and that OCJA will begin creating the advisory board, which will then determine how to distribute the funds according to DOJ requirements. His spokesperson said no timeline has been set for establishing the advisory board, but that the governor’s office “looks forward” to working with DPS on the process. 

Around the Capitol

• Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) met with Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Tuesday to discuss the administration’s border policy and immigration. The meeting included her three Latino Democratic colleagues – Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), and Alex Padilla (D-CA). 
• All of Nevada’s Democrats received campaign funds from executives at the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency company FTX. Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) received $2,900 from Sam Bankman-Fried. The campaigns are awaiting legal instructions on whether the money needs to be returned to repay creditors, and said they plan to comply with that decision.
• Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) questioned acting Federal Aviation Administration Commissioner Billy Nolen in a Commerce Committee hearing as the FAA has come under scrutiny for multiple near-collisions of airplanes. Rosen, who will work on the FAA’s reauthorization as a member of the committee, pressed Nolen on whether the FAA systems are resilient and modernized enough to withstand cyberattacks. 
• Rosen endorsed deputy secretary Julie Su to be the new Secretary of Labor. Su is the preferred choice of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
• The Southwest Mountain States Regional Council of Carpenters have asked the Bureau of Land Management to prioritize jobs with union-scale wages and apprenticeship programs as it plans to scale up its solar energy planning across the West.
• Cortez Masto introduced a bill to provide resources to prevent violence against Native American women and improve data collection.
• Rosen introduced a bill to reauthorize a grant program funding Student Veteran Centers on college campuses.
• The Department of Health and Human Services awarded $4.2 million to Las Vegas Sunrise Children’s Foundation through its Early Head Start program to improve early child development and education.
• Cortez Masto and five other Democratic colleagues wrote a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, calling on Meta to crack down on drug trafficking and human smuggling on its platforms, particularly in Spanish-language content.

Notable and Quotable

“I can only hope that as we continue to have these conversations, and stress to the administration the importance of addressing these issues, there’s a path forward.”

• Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, on whether her conversation with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas gave new energy to immigration talks

Legislative Tracker

SEN. CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO

Legislation sponsored:

S.404 – A bill to require the Secretary of Energy to obtain the consent of affected state and local governments before making an expenditure from the Nuclear Waste Fund for a nuclear waste repository, and for other purposes.

S.465 – A bill to require federal law enforcement agencies to report on cases of missing or murdered American Indians, and for other purposes.

Legislation co-sponsored:

S.Res.57 – A resolution honoring the life of David Ferdinand Durenberger, former senator for the State of Minnesota.

S.Res.63 – A resolution celebrating Black History Month.

S.411 – A bill to amend Title 18, U.S. Code, to reauthorize and expand the National Threat Assessment Center of the Department of Homeland Security.

S.Res.65 – A resolution opposing a national sales tax on working families and supporting a tax cut to benefit the middle class.

S.Res.67 – A resolution supporting the goals and ideals of "Career and Technical Education Month".

S.Res.69 – A resolution expressing support for the designation of Feb. 18 through Feb. 25 as "National FFA Week", recognizing the important role of the National FFA Organization in developing the next generation of globally conscious leaders who will change the world and in celebration of the 95th anniversary of the National FFA Organization.

S.443 – A bill to treat certain liquidations of new motor vehicle inventory as qualified liquidations of “last in first out”  inventory for purposes of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

S.Res.66 – A resolution condemning the use by the People's Republic of China of a high-altitude surveillance balloon over the territory of the United States as a brazen violation of U.S. sovereignty.

S.494 – A bill to require a background check for every firearm sale.

S.499 – A bill to amend the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000 to reauthorize the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program, and for other purposes.

S.512 – A bill to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to provide for additional disclosure requirements for corporations, labor organizations, Super PACs and other entities, and for other purposes.

S.514 – A bill to award posthumously the Congressional Gold Medal to Constance Baker Motley, in recognition of her enduring contributions and service to the United States.

SEN. JACKY ROSEN

Legislation sponsored:

S.Res.65 – A resolution opposing a national sales tax on working families and supporting a tax cut to benefit the middle class.

S.498 – A bill to reauthorize and improve a grant program to assist institutions of higher education in establishing, maintaining, improving, and operating Student Veteran Centers.

Legislation co-sponsored:

S.Res.57 – A resolution honoring the life of David Ferdinand Durenberger, former senator for the State of Minnesota.

S.Res.63 – A resolution celebrating Black History Month.

S.404 – A bill to require the Secretary of Energy to obtain the consent of affected state and local governments before making an expenditure from the Nuclear Waste Fund for a nuclear waste repository, and for other purposes.

S.Res.67 – A resolution supporting the goals and ideals of "Career and Technical Education Month".

S.Res.74 – A resolution condemning the Government of Iran's state-sponsored persecution of the Baha'i minority and its continued violation of the International Covenants on Human Rights.

S.463 – A bill to amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to include certain communities, and for other purposes.

S.494 – A bill to require a background check for every firearm sale.

S.512 – A bill to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to provide for additional disclosure requirements for corporations, labor organizations, Super PACs and other entities, and for other purposes.

REP. DINA TITUS

Legislation sponsored:

H.R. 1051 – To require the Secretary of Energy to obtain the consent of affected state and local governments before making an expenditure from the Nuclear Waste Fund for a nuclear waste repository, and for other purposes.

Legislation co-sponsored:

H.R. 1014 – To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose a windfall profits excise tax on crude oil and to rebate the tax collected back to individual taxpayers, and for other purposes.

H.R. 1021 – To direct the Secretary of the Interior to remove or permanently conceal the name of Francis Newlands on the grounds of the memorial fountain located at Chevy Chase Circle in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes.

H.R. 1045 – To amend Title 10, U.S. Code, to improve dependent coverage under the TRICARE Young Adult Program.

REP. SUSIE LEE

Legislation co-sponsored:

H.R. 1051 – To require the Secretary of Energy to obtain the consent of affected state and local governments before making an expenditure from the Nuclear Waste Fund for a nuclear waste repository, and for other purposes.

REP. STEVEN HORSFORD

Legislation co-sponsored:

H.R. 1051 – To require the Secretary of Energy to obtain the consent of affected state and local governments before making an expenditure from the Nuclear Waste Fund for a nuclear waste repository, and for other purposes.

The Week Ahead

Both the House and the Senate are out next week.