Editorial: Bush has no shame in his bid

Sunday, June 4, 2000 | 8:57 a.m.

After almost a year of campaigning for the presidency, Texas Gov. George W. Bush finally has made his first visit to Nevada. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee selected Lake Tahoe, with its picturesque beauty, as the backdrop on Thursday to lay out his views on how the nation could do a better job of protecting the environment. But Lake Tahoe was nothing more than a prop, used by Bush in a bid to try to blunt what most conservation groups say has been Texas' abysmal record in curbing pollution.

What makes Bush's appearance at Lake Tahoe particularly galling for Nevadans is that on the biggest environmental issue confronting this state -- federal attempts to place a nuclear waste dump in Nevada -- he would not elaborate on a previous, three-sentence statement on the topic. Bush refused to hold a news conference, an opportunity that would have allowed the local media to ask him questions about GOP-led efforts in Congress to bury 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste inside Yucca Mountain.

It's not as if Bush ignores the local media elsewhere. The Associated Press noted that Bush held news conferences in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona before arriving in Nevada, which was the fourth stop in his five-state campaign swing through the West. When local reporters from Nevada tried to ask him about nuclear waste following his remarks at Lake Tahoe, all he could muster was "you have my statement" -- before he dashed off to a fund-raiser. Ah, yes, his statement. On May 3, after refusing for weeks to say anything about legislation in Congress that would have sent nuclear waste to Nevada by 2007, Bush sent a brief letter to Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, saying that he believed science, not politics, should determine whether nuclear waste should be sent to Yucca Mountain.

Bush's statement, though, told us absolutely nothing since even those who want to send nuclear waste here also mouth the same empty platitudes about science dictating the process. The key in this issue is deeds, not words. President Clinton vetoed the nuclear waste legislation, an action supported by Vice President Al Gore, the likely Democratic presidential nominee. If that legislation had become law, Nevada's fight against a repository would have become almost impossible. After all, the bill not only would have weakened the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to set radiation standards for a repository at Yucca Mountain, but the legislation also would have sent nuclear waste to Nevada by 2007 -- even though the earliest the Department of Energy believes a repository could be built is by 2010.

The Bush campaign has said ad nauseam, on a variety of issues, that Gore will do anything to get elected president. But considering Bush's dissembling on Yucca Mountain, it appears that it is Bush who actually will say and do anything to capture the White House. Don't forget that Clinton was able to carry Nevada, which traditionally supports Republicans in presidential elections, in both 1992 and 1996. Bush knows that if he were to acknowledge that he would have signed into law the nuclear waste storage bill, his hopes of carrying Nevada would be dashed.

No amount of spin, or stunning views of Lake Tahoe in the background, can erase the fact that Bush is in league with the nuclear power industry, which has contributed heavily to his campaign. If Bush indeed had found the legislation at odds with his own beliefs, he quickly would have told Nevadans that he would have vetoed the legislation. But now that he's collected his money from Nevadans we shouldn't expect to hear from him again any time soon -- unless of course he needs to tap Nevadans for more dollars to fund his presidential campaign.