Senators: Plan proves Bush is for nuke dump

Benjamin Grove

Friday, July 28, 2000 | 11:18 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada's Democratic senators have jumped on what they see as the first bit of concrete evidence that George W. Bush, if elected, would establish an interim nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain.

Sens. Richard Bryan and Harry Reid, both D-Nev., said that a comment made by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., during a discussion on the Senate floor, was a clear message for Nevadans.

Domenici on Thursday was talking in general about the nation's energy policy and the under-used role of nuclear energy when Reid interrupted to pose a single question:

"What I wanted to ask my friend from New Mexico -- would George W. Bush -- do you think he would have a different policy and would allow the nuclear waste to go to Nevada?" Reid asked, according to a Senate transcript.

Domenici responded: "I don't know about that. We -- we will build a short-term nuclear waste facility within six months to eight months of the next president if he's Republican because it's totally safe, whether they'll put it in your state or somewhere else, I don't know."

Those words were a smoking gun indicting Bush, Nevada's senators said. Bryan said "the cat was out of the bag."

"The choice for president for Nevadans could not be more clear," Bryan said.

Reid said he posed the question to Domenici because Dominici was "up there trying to make Democrats look bad, saying we had no energy policy."

"This is so clear," Reid said. "We have confirmed with one of the ranking Republicans in the entire country -- chairman of the Budget committee, chairman of the (Appropriations) Energy and Water subcommittee, one of the friends of George Bush -- and what he is saying to me is if we have a Republican president, we're going to have nuclear waste in your state."

Reid, an active Gore supporter, added, "Anyone who votes for George Bush is voting to put nuclear waste in Nevada within six months."

At issue is a plan under consideration to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste -- eventually 77,000 tons of it -- in caverns under Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Scientists and Congress have not approved the plan.

What Domenici and Reid were discussing was a proposal to immediately set up an interim, above-ground waste storage site near Yucca until Yucca is completed. Clinton has threatened to veto an interim dump.

Bush and Gore have issued similar statements about their views on Yucca Mountain. Both said science, not politics, should determine whether waste is stored there. Neither has said they oppose the plan altogether.

Domenici clarified that the decision on where to store waste -- not the interim waste site itself -- would be established within six to eight months. He stressed that Yucca Mountain may not be the interim waste site, even though it is the only one under study as a permanent waste site.

Domenici also stressed that he has not spoken to Bush, who he called a friend, about nuclear waste storage.

"I have no idea what Bush would do on the interim issue," Domenici said.

Domenici seemed perplexed at the instant reaction to his comment from Nevada's senators.

"That's their prerogative," he said. "It's a political year."