Sen. Harry Reid on Thursday tours the 99th Logistics Readiness Squadron Vehicle Management Flight building on Nellis Air Force Base. Photos by Clint Karlsen. Sen. Harry Reid shakes hands with Nellis Air Force Base personnel on Thursday. Earlier, he rejected criticism by a nuclear energy coalition that his pledge to block votes on the Yucca Mountain Project would be an abuse of his new powers as Senate majority leader.

WASHINGTON -- Leaders of a coalition that supports the Yucca Mountain repository applied pressure on Sen. Harry Reid on Thursday, saying that he is "abusing" his new powers as Senate majority leader by pledging to block votes on the project planned in Southern Nevada.

Reid, who will lead the Senate when it reconvenes in January, was challenged to allow debate and votes on "fix Yucca Mountain" bills that could pass even though he adamantly opposes them.

By refusing to schedule votes, the Nevadan is putting parochial interests before the needs of the nation to relocate radioactive spent fuel away from communities, and the desires of fellow Democrats who have nuclear waste piling up in their states, the repository advocates said.

"When (Reid) is leading the majority, he has to act in the best interests of the majority, and the best interests of the majority is to move nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain," said LeRoy Koppendrayer, chairman of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.

"Would he vote for it himself? I doubt it, but he should let his members vote," Koppendrayer, coalition chairman, said at a news conference.

"To even prohibit it from coming to the floor to be addressed to me is a misuse and an abuse of the position," said Charles Pray, a former Maine legislator who now is that state's nuclear adviser.

"Please, Senator Reid, stand aside," declared Jack Edlow, president of Edlow International, a nuclear transport company.

Edlow said Reid is "conflicted" between roles as Nevada senator and as majority leader and should "remove himself from this debate to let others make the decisions."

The coalition consists of public service commissions, nuclear utilities and business interests in 26 states where radioactive spent fuel is stored. It focuses on how the government is managing more than $14 billion that utility ratepayers have contributed into a repository construction fund.

Reid said Thursday the coalition was "whistling in the wind" if it thought he would step aside or relax his efforts against Yucca Mountain.

"This is not a Nevada parochial issue," he contended. "People all over the country don't like nuclear waste. There is not an environmental group around that supports (Yucca Mountain)."

"Yes, the responsibilities I have are broader now, I have more to do than before, but Nevada comes first," Reid said. "I am not going to abuse my power."

Reid has contended that a proposal he and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., have made to have the government manage nuclear waste at reactor sites would be a safer alternative than shipping it to Nevada, where elected leaders argue the Yucca site is flawed and unsafe.

That plan, which he has said he will continue to promote in the new Congress, has picked up little support since it was introduced last year.

Reid also has backed a bill by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to authorize interim nuclear waste sites in as many as 31 states, but that idea has been roundly criticized by governors and the Department of Energy as unwieldy.

The last time the Senate voted on Yucca Mountain was July 9, 2002, when the repository was approved 60-39. Thirty of the senators serving then have since retired or lost office.

Political scientist Barbara Sinclair said congressional leaders occasionally confront questions of "where to draw the line" between state and national priorities.

"What the national interest is tends to some extent to be in the eye of the beholder, but mostly the general notion is that of course leaders are going to use their positions to help their own states," said Sinclair, who teaches at UCLA.

Considering public opposition to Yucca Mountain in Nevada, "it would be crazy" for Reid to be seen as loosening his hold, Sinclair said.

Reid is up for re-election in 2010. "Unless he plans on retiring, this is a no-brainer," because Reid's races generally have been close and he has little wiggle room electorally to compromise, said Richard Semiatin, a political science professor at American University.

But Pray said Reid risks being accused of abusing his leadership if his decisions on nuclear waste cause problems for Democrats in states like Pennsylvania and Illinois, which are leading states in terms of nuclear waste being stored in cooling pools and on-site dry casks.

"If (Illinois Senators Richard) Durbin and (Barack) Obama want to vote to protect Nevada as perceived by Senator Reid, that is a decision they will have to make," Pray said.

With Democrats just having captured the Senate on Election Day and Reid in line to become majority leader, the Nevadan said on Nov. 8 that bills to help Yucca Mountain would never see the Senate floor.

Two bills that would allow the Department of Energy to make progress at the repository site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, were proposed in the Congress that is coming to an end this month. It is not yet clear what will be reintroduced in the next session.

Another Domenici bill would allow DOE to begin storing nuclear waste on above-ground concrete pads at the Yucca site in 2010, which is at least seven years sooner than the Bush administration has envisioned.

A separate "fix Yucca" bill proposed by the administration would authorize a series of changes in law to enable DOE to obtain permits, land ownership and the necessary financing to build the repository.

Interest groups and industry organizations that deal with nuclear waste are refocusing their Yucca Mountain strategies on a reconstituted Congress.

While the public utility coalition appears to be adopting a combative stance, reaction among other nuclear interests has varied.

The Edison Electric Institute earlier this week signaled a willingness to work with Reid.

"Harry Reid and the Democrats have to be part of the solution," institute President Tom Kuhn said at a news conference Tuesday.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the largest nuclear lobbying organization, has been low key so far, offering no glimpses as to how it plans to operate in the new Congress.

Spokeswoman Trish Conrad said NEI does not share the view that Reid would be abusing power by marshaling his leadership against the repository.

"I am told we have not held that opinion nor do we have plans to do so in the future," Conrad said.

As for calling on Reid to step aside on repository bills, "we are not aware of any precedent of this kind," Conrad said.