Editorial: Undying animosity for Nevada

Sunday, Aug. 6, 2000 | 9:13 a.m.

Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush has not directly told Nevadans whether he would have signed into law GOP-sponsored legislation that would have sent 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste to this state. In his only campaign trip to Nevada, Bush refused to answer reporters' questions about this bill, which President Clinton wisely thwarted with his veto. But if there were any doubts left about Bush's actual views on nuclear waste storage, those should have been erased earlier last week. The Republican National Committee platform, which Bush advisers had a heavy hand in crafting, includes language denouncing Clinton for vetoing nuclear waste storage legislation.

The Texas governor is a friend of the nuclear power industry, so it's not too surprising where his true feelings should lie. What is remarkable, however, is that there are Nevada Republicans who are downplaying this issue. For instance, Las Vegas City Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald, who served on the GOP national convention's platform committee, noted that the committee never mentioned the need to get the waste to Nevada. "I wouldn't say that the platform is Nevada specific at all," Boggs McDonald told Sun reporter Benjamin Grove. "If this was a big priority of the GOP, it would have been an action item: store nuclear waste in Nevada."

The words "Nevada" or "Yucca Mountain" might not be used, but it's unmistakable what the Republicans have in mind. Nevada is the only state that Congress has targeted for a nuclear waste repository, so obviously there's no need to mention the state by name. The platform language is the political equivalent of hitting Nevada over the head with a two-by-four.

The Republican-controlled Congress' heavy-handedness on nuclear waste storage has been a huge embarrassment to GOP Nevada politicians in light of the known dangers of storing high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Now Bush, their party's standard-bearer, appears to have all but signed on to the folly as well. Still, some Nevada Republicans don't seem too worried. Rep. Jim Gibbons, who attended the convention in Philadelphia, told Associated Press reporter Scott Sonner that he's content with Bush's stated willingness to "offer an open-door policy to listen to Nevada and hear our concerns." Despite Gibbons' assurances, Bush's "open door" is looking more and more like a trapdoor instead. The real question is this: How much longer will Nevada Republican politicians continue to make excuses for their national party's hostility toward this state on nuclear waste storage?