AUSTIN, Texas — Sometimes keeping your eye on the shell with the pea under it up in Washington is enough to wear out your eye muscles. This week, for example, the Senate is tied into a knot (stop the presses!) over what to do about nuclear waste. Having pluperfectly proved that no one knows what to do with nuclear waste, next week, Congress will vote on subsidizing more of it.

This particular corporate welfare boondoggle is called the advanced light water reactor (ALWR), and so far, it has cost us $200 million in "hard-earned taxpayer dollars." (This is our Cliche of the Month; all taxpayer dollars are hard-earned, even if they come from lottery winnings.) The hard-earned taxpayer dollars are going to such struggling firms as General Electric and Westinghouse to develop a new generation of nuclear power generators. The problem is, nobody wants them. No American utility has bought a nuclear plant since 1973, and 89 percent of utility executives recently polled said they never would.

How come is simple: Nukes don't work. The Safe Energy Communication Council reports that nuclear energy costs 5 to 10 cents per kilowatt hour; coal costs between 1.5 and 3.5, natural gas between 3 and 4, and windmills 5 cents and going down.

Here we have a classic case of government subsidizing something that we don't need and don't want and that doesn't work. Government pork has become a running theme in the media; the networks have regular features such as "The Fleecing of America" and "It's Your Money." It's enough to make one wonder if government ever does anything right. (Yep, it does; before long, some bright news program is going start a segment called "What Works" and amaze the whole country.)

But in the meantime, here's this gold-plated piece of tripe we can all cluck over, and even more happily, we might actually get rid of it this go-round — especially if Your Elected Representative hears from you. How bad is it? In February, General Electric announced that it was abandoning development of its boiling-water reactor, which has received more than $50 million in subsidies under this program.

One of the possible markets for these new nukes is in Southeast Asian countries. But the 1992 Energy Policy Act clearly states that recipients of ALWR subsidies must certify that they intend to construct and operate their reactors only inside the United States. On top of that, export might put us in violation of our policy about the spread of nuclear materials.

This is not a partisan or ideological issue; the House sponsors to get rid of the subsidy are Reps. Mark Foley, R-Fla., and David Obey, D-Wis. The Heritage Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Cato Institute and Taxpayers for Common Sense are joined with Ralph Nader, the environmental groups and the rest of the Usual Suspects in opposition to this particular piece of dumbness. But as you know full well, getting a special-interest subsidy out of the budget practically requires a political firestorm. For the price of a postcard — my suggestion for a model message would be "Hey, Lunk-head, vote against the ALWR subsidy or I'm voting for the other guy in November" — we can save ourselves millions over the next five years. Now that's a bargain.

While you've got your ballpoint at the ready, how about adding this: "And if you call Newt's bill 'campaign finance reform,' my dog is Marilyn Monroe." One look at Speaker Gingrich's "Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1996" leaves us with the eternal question: Just how dumb do they think we are? The New York Times said the misnomer deserves a prize for "political impudence." Here in the boonies, we call it something meaning "round objects used in several kinds of games."

This "reform" bill fixes the problem of having a government bought and paid for by special interests by raising the limit on individual contributions from $25,000 to $3 million! Way to get big money out of politics! The bill lowers the limit on political action committee contributions from $10,000 to $5,000, which means there will be twice as many PACs. Isn't that clever?

I wouldn't mind so much if Gingrich & Co. did nothing about the open cesspool of campaign financing in this country — but to make it worse and call it "reform"? Give. Us. A. Break.

In their wishy-washy Non-Contract With America, the Democrats put in a little bow to campaign reform, but it's almost meaningless. Every Democratic candidate should be howling about campaign finance reform, and it should be Numero Uno on their agenda if they get Congress back again. The corporate special-interest money has gone over to the Republicans, and it ain't ever coming back; there's no way the D's can out-whore the R's when it comes to special interests. The American people are sick of this corruption, and they know perfectly well that politicians dance with them what brung 'em. Fix it or lose.

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Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.