Guinn tells Bush of opposition to nuke site

Monday, Jan. 8, 2001 | 11:17 a.m.

Gov. Kenny Guinn said Sunday he voiced his concerns about storing high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain to President-elect George W. Bush during a weekend visit to Texas.

Guinn and 19 other Republican governors were summoned to Bush's ranch in Crawford on Saturday to discuss education and energy issues.

In a brief chat with Bush, Guinn said he was able to raise the Yucca Mountain issue, but had no time to hammer home the state's opposition.

"I told him I would be getting with Spencer Abraham," the governor said after he returned to Carson City.

Abraham, a just-retired Republican senator from Michigan, has been nominated to head the Energy Department, which is gearing up to recommend whether Yucca Mountain is suitable to store the deadly nuclear waste. He is on record supporting the nuclear industry's push to ship the waste to Nevada from nuclear plants across the country.

Guinn said he hopes to arrange a meeting with Abraham when he goes to Washington early next month to attend the National Governors Association winter meeting.

Prior to leaving for Texas Friday night, Guinn issued a statement, saying he was "definitely looking forward to reiterating Nevada's steadfast position that we will not be the country's nuclear waste dump."

The governor said Sunday he plans to continue to play a leading role in the fight against a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Guinn will be sending a top aide to Thursday's anti-Yucca Mountain meeting of business and community leaders, which is being organized by Strip executive Stephen Cloobeck.

The Sun reported Friday that Cloobeck, president and chief executive officer of Diamond Resorts International, a company that runs time-sharing condominium projects on the Strip, is mounting a grassroots campaign against the dump.

He has scheduled an organizational meeting at the Clark County Commission chambers at 1 p.m. Thursday.

Cloobeck's effort, which has not been tried in two decades of fighting the dump, comes amid growing concerns about the DOE's perceived bias in favor of Yucca Mountain, the only site being studied for the nuclear repository.

A team of investigators from the DOE's inspector general office is expected in Las Vegas next month to probe whether federal laws were broken during the agency's site selection process.

The DOE is prohibited from taking sides in the process, but documents obtained by the Sun last month showed the DOE might have been collaborating behind the scenes with the nuclear industry to promote Yucca Mountain to Congress.

A decision on a recommendation has been put on hold until the investigation is completed.

Cloobeck acknowledged that he's "extremely naive" on the Yucca Mountain issue, but he said he hopes the campaign will be able to educate business executives such as himself about the economic and health risks posed by the dump.

He said he has encouraged casino executives, elected officials, union leaders and members of the banking, utility and communications industries to attend Thursday's meeting.

"We've tried to touch every major company," Cloobeck said. "It's going to take everyone's effort."