Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: GOP ads waste of time

Thursday, May 4, 2000 | 10:16 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is the editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

I am a nuclear waste partisan.

By that I mean that on the issue of burying the country's high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, just a few miles from downtown Las Vegas, I am as partisan as anyone can be in my desire not to be the nation's garbage bin. I believe that most Nevadans feel the same way. That makes us all partisans.

And that means that anyone on the other side of this issue, the people who want to send thousands of tons of radioactive poison to be buried in our back yard and stored for the next 10,000 years, is a bad guy. It is really quite simple: the good guys want to keep Nevada's children and future generations free from the health and safety risks of the high-level dump and the bad guys want to shove it down our throats. On this issue there is nothing wrong with being partisan. To be anything less is folly.

So why am I listening to radio ads from the Nevada Republican Party that say nuclear waste opposition in this state is a bipartisan issue? In truth, it is bipartisan because everyone with a brain and a desire to keep our futures safer and healthier opposes Congress' unrelenting efforts to force upon Nevada that which the rest of the country does not want. That includes Republicans, Democrats, Independents and most other political denominations. The ads, however, say something else. So do the newspaper headlines.

Take yesterday's headline in the Sun and probably every other newspaper that ran the story: "GOP says war on nuke bill not over."

There is nothing bipartisan about that. In fact, except for two very courageous votes by Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee, the rest of the Senate votes that upheld President Bill Clinton's veto were Democrats. And we had no votes to spare. The Senate needed 34 votes to sustain the presidential turndown. Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan, working their colleagues up to the last minute, mustered 34 votes. Of course, if you count Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's vote, there were 35 on Nevada's side, but that tally doesn't tell the story.

Because of Senate rules, Lott's last minute switcheroo allows him to call the vote up again when he thinks he can find that one more vote needed to start sending high level radioactive garbage to Nevada. And he told the Sun he'll do just that. That's when other Republican senators joined the Leader in making it clear that Nevada was in their sights and they were not going to leave the matter alone.

It may very well be true that Nevadans are opposed to the dump in a very big and bipartisan way. But it is an unbelievable stretch of even the remotest measure of truth to suggest that this issue at the national level bears any resemblance to bipartisanship.

No, the reason for the radio ads in Nevada is to try to undo the grave harm the Republicans in the Congress have thrust upon their GOP colleagues in the Silver State. As if to say we don't give a damn about any of you out there in the desert, the Senate Republicans and their counterparts in the House of Representatives have already written off this state for GOP victories. Now, if you ask John Ensign, he'll tell you he's a lead pipe cinch, and if you ask our good governor, Kenny Guinn, he'll tell you he's foursquare behind George W. Bush. But neither of these two men can tell you that their colleagues or their candidate will do for Nevada what President Clinton has just done. Save us from 10,000 years of medical uncertainty and economic ruination. And I predict that this one issue, more important to Nevada parents than any other, will carry the day in this state.

On that score, there is nothing bipartisan about nuclear waste. The Republicans continue to do all in their power to shove that stuff ever closer our way and the Democrats find themselves on the side of the angels in agreeing with Nevada that there has to be a better and safer way. Meanwhile, the radio ads keep telling us what we know to be a lie.

Why do they waste their money when they would be better off explaining to their candidates and colleagues that Nevadans, like any other citizens of this country, do not take kindly to being put upon by their countrymen? We are the first in line to do our part for the national defense, but when it comes to nuke waste from commercial reactors -- none of which exist in this state -- that's where we draw the line.

So all the polling notwithstanding and all the radio ads to the contrary, the fact remains that Nevadans will vote in November 2000 for the person and the party that will once and for all put a stake in the heart of this nuclear waste debacle. Between now and then we will await Gov. George W. Bush's position on the subject and look forward to our GOP contenders' announcement that they have changed enough of their colleagues minds in the Congress to end our statewide nightmare.

Shortly thereafter we will have a reprise by the Easter Bunny.