Sierra Club ad denounces candidates for nuke stance

Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2000 | 11:11 a.m.

The Sierra Club announced Tuesday that it has launched an advertisement critical of Republican candidates John Ensign and Jon Porter.

The radio ad ties the two to a Republican platform plank that calls for sending nuclear waste to a proposed high-level repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Former Rep. Ensign is running for Senate against Democrat and trial lawyer Ed Bernstein. State Sen. Porter is running for Las Vegas' U.S. House seat against incumbent Democrat Shelley Berkley.

All the candidates have said they oppose putting a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

The Sierra Club in a release said Ensign and Porter "sat back and watched as Republicans adopted a platform that advocated sending nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain."

"It is frightening to think that Jon Porter's party would allow this radioactive waste to be dumped on Nevada," said Jessica Hodge, Sierra Club organizer in Southern Nevada. "Porter and Ensign should follow the Clinton administration's lead to block these efforts to foist the nation's nuclear waste on us."

As an "issue" ad, the radio message does not directly urge voters to vote Democratic on Nov. 7. The national organization's political arm has endorsed Vice President Al Gore, a Democrat, in the presidential race.

Hodge said the ad will run on three stations in Reno and three stations in Las Vegas. The effort will end Friday when the Sierra Club holds rallies with the them "Nevada is Not a Wasteland."

Josh Griffin, Porter campaign manager, fired back at the Sierra Club.

"Obviously, this is just a continuation of some politicians (who are) trying to make this a partisan issue," he said.

"Obviously this is a very competitive race, and Shelley Berkley will be pulling out all the stops to cling to her political seat," Griffin said, calling the ad "absurd."

Griffin reiterated charges that Berkley supported the nuclear waste dump in a 1999 vote on energy and water infrastructure funding. That bill included $800 million appropriation for work preparing the waste site.

Richard Urey, Berkley's chief of staff, rejected the Porter counterattack. The same bill cited by Griffin included money needed for critical flood control and infrastructure improvements for Nevada and nationwide, he said.

And Berkley helped gather the critical votes in the House needed to sustain a presidential veto that stopped Yucca Mountain from moving forward earlier this year, Urey said. He called that vote this year "the real battle."

Urey criticized Porter for failing to criticize the Republican leadership's position on the waste dump during the candidate's speech at the Republican National Convention in August.