Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Changing of the guard

Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2001 | 9:52 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

"I'll BET YOU wouldn't be negative about Gale Norton becoming interior secretary if she had been appointed by Bill Clinton instead of George W. Bush," were the opening shots of some letters and phone calls. All I can tell them is that they are dead wrong. Nevada and our environment mean more to me than partisan politics.

Remember Hazel O'Leary, president-elect Bill Clinton's first nominee to become energy secretary? Here's what I wrote in a Dec. 27, 1992, column before Clinton had entered the White House:

"Sen. J. Bennett Johnston is credited with giving birth to the 'Screw Nevada' law, which targets Yucca Mountain for the nuke waste produced by our nation's public utilities. Now there is reason to believe that the Democrat from Louisiana can be credited for hanging outgoing Colorado Sen. Tim Wirth's scalp on his belt.

"Reliable sources tell me that Johnston favored public utility executive Hazel O'Leary over Wirth as Clinton's energy secretary. O'Leary had earlier, like Johnston, made known her desire to move the deadly nuke waste into Nevada as soon as possible. Her company is a major producer of the waste ..."

In the same column I added, "Johnston, Louisiana's senior senator, sees himself as the real energy secretary and, until this point in time, there is little reason for anybody to challenge his claim to the title.

"When all is said and done, the selection of O'Leary may well cause more problems for Nevada and the state's Democratic, anti-nuke-waste officeholders than any other action by the incoming president. ..."

O'Leary was not my only target in that column. I also questioned the wisdom of nominating Rep. Les Aspin, D-Wis., to become the secretary of defense.

My concerns about O'Leary became a reality. O'Leary lived up to her reputation and was the second coming of "Screw Nevada." I had faint hopes she would eventually see the dangers of hauling nuke waste through several states and dumping it in an environmentally dangerous place. She didn't and eventually returned to Minnesota to produce more of the deadly stuff.

Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson has been a breath of fresh air since taking over the reins of that agency. It still has more than its share of serious problems, but the top guy has been a friend of Nevada and has been willing to listen to our concerns. So has President Clinton, who has used his power to protect us from the votes of GOP senators like Spencer Abraham of Michigan, who has been nominated by the incoming chief executive to run the energy department.

Nevadans had better strap on their seat belts for the ride Abraham will give the Silver State. We can only hope that the new occupant of the White House will show us the same understanding and concern about Nevada's environment, health and safety as did the man who has been there the past eight years.

Nevada voters have been reassured by Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Jim Gibbons, Gov. Kenny Guinn and several local Bush campaigners that the new president is also a friend. Nevadans evidently believed them, and their four electoral votes gave Bush the one electoral vote margin needed to enter the White House this month.

We will, some time during the next four years, learn if we really have a new friend in the White House.