Editorial: Not exactly a feel-good beginning

Saturday, Jan. 20, 2001 | 10:16 a.m.

George W. Bush, during his presidential campaign, pledged to treat Nevada fairly with respect to congressional efforts to send nuclear waste to this state. Specifically, Bush vowed to side with the Environmental Protection Agency, instead of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in setting tough radiation-release guidelines that would have to be met before a nuclear waste repository could be built here.

At the time, Bush's promise was met with guffaws from Democrats and other independent political observers since it came at the end of the campaign and was made by a candidate who had received phenomenal financial support from the nuclear power industry. Yet enough Nevadans -- after hearing testimonials on behalf of Bush's sincerity offered by this state's Republican leadership -- took Bush at his word, giving him the state's four electoral votes.

Fast forward two months, to a few days before Bush's inauguration. At her confirmation hearing last week, EPA Administrator-nominee Christie Whitman was asked by Sen. Harry Reid whether the EPA or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should set the radiation-safety standards for a repository. Whitman responded that this should be a "combined responsibility" that should occur in a "collegial" manner. Collegial? The NRC's proposed standard on this critical issue is so weak it seems as if it was ghost-written by the nuclear power industry. So Nevadans justifiably worry about any talk of collegiality with the NRC, an agency that has shown little respect for the genuine safety concerns that Nevadans have expressed. Besides, Whitman's comments would seem to rebuff Bush's campaign vow that he would support the Clinton administration's EPA standards, not some watered -down version.

Meanwhile, Bush's nominee to be secretary of energy, Spencer Abraham, said the administration would support "sound science" in determining whether Yucca Mountain was suitable, a vague assurance that doesn't mean much. And the fact remains that during his confirmation hearing, Abraham acknowledged he was committed to moving forward on the federal government's plan to bury nuclear waste in Nevada. For residents of this state who are troubled by the possibility of a high-level nuclear waste repository at the doorstep of the nation's fastest growing city, last week's confirmation hearings for Whitman and Abraham weren't a good omen.