WASHINGTON - Democratic Congressman Jim Matheson plans to join forces with Republican Sen. Bob Bennett to reintroduce legislation next year for mandatory environmental reviews before underground nuclear weapons testing could resume in Nevada.
    The pair of Utah lawmakers introduced similar bills requiring congressional authorization of any new detonations at the Nevada Test Site northwest of Las Vegas, but both measures are considered dead as the current session sputters to a close.
    With Congress approving a 2005 energy spending bill that eliminates funding for studying new versions of existing nuclear weapons Saturday, Matheson said he hopes to work with Bennett to craft a single piece of legislation that would protect downwinders from potential exposure to radioactive fallout or contamination.
    "I was very pleased by Sen. Bennett's bill and I like some of the changes he put in his, so I'm hoping we can work together to reintroduce a new bill in the next Congress," Matheson said. "I believe there is the opportunity to make a lot of progress on this, especially with bipartisan support and having a companion bill in the Senate."
    Said Bennett's spokeswoman Mary Jane Collipriest: "Senator Bennett looks forward to coordinating with Congressman Matheson on that legislative effort next year."
    Introduced in March, Matheson's "Safety for Americans from Nuclear Weapons Testing Act" would require environmental reviews on health and safety of a proposed underground test and require Congress to authorize resumed tests. It also would increase Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency responsibility for radiation level monitoring, authorize independent radiation fallout monitoring, and authorize a study on long-term health effects of radiation exposure.
    Bennett's bill, which was introduced in September, essentially duplicated Matheson's measure, but also added provisions such as requiring the installation of radiation monitoring stations in any Utah county that requests one and establishing a citizen review board to meet with DOE to discuss testing concerns. The bill also would order the National Academies of Science to study the adequacy of current radiation release prevention measures used at the test site.
    Such pre-authorization testing legislation would face hurdles. Lawmakers whose home states include DOE weapons labs worry that increasing the public participation requirements for resumed testing could mean endless delays and ultimately threaten America's nuclear defense posture.
    Nuclear policy watchdogs from the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL) met with Bennett's staff last week in Washington to challenge a statement the senator made to The Salt Lake Tribune last month on the potential health threat of underground testing to people living downwind from the Nevada Test Site.
    Because above-ground tests ended in 1962, Bennett told The Tribune he believes "clearly prior to 1962 there were downwinders, but after that, scientifically it's harder to make a case for anybody who's 42 years or younger."
    Vanessa Pierce, HEAL's program director, said they have asked Bennett to review a 1988 study by the now-defunct congressional Office of Technology Assessment that concluded since 1970, 126 underground tests in Nevada resulted in radioactive material entering the atmosphere. The OTA study found while safeguards were incorporated into each underground nuclear bomb detonation, "there can never be 100 percent confidence that a test will not release radioactive material."