Where I stand—Brian Greenspun: Don’t tread on us

Friday, March 30, 2001 | 3:30 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

"WE HAVE a political problem with the state of Nevada that is serious with reference to the state's fighting the federal government."

So sayeth Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico. He's the same fellow, by the way, who told Nevada's senior Senator, Harry Reid, just a few months ago that the nation's high-level nuclear waste would be heading our way within months after George W. Bush was elected president.

To Nevadans, that bit of truth telling by the likable Sen. Domenici confirmed what we have known for years, and that is that the decision to put nuclear waste in Nevada at Yucca Mountain is all to do with politics and nothing to do with science, or even necessity.

I hope and, dare I say it in this modern age, pray that the good senator is right on the mark this time when he suggests that political issues may derail a hellbent Congress and nuclear industry from burying their inability to deal with radioactive waste in our back yard.

What is most ironic about Sen. Domenici's statement is that it comes on the heels of an attempt by many of Nevada's state legislators to cave in to the Department of Energy and begin negotiating transportation routes.

Say what they will to cover their behinds, those folks in Carson City who couldn't wait to advance legislation that would send the wrong message to Washington almost dealt this state a fatal blow in our long-term effort to rid ourselves of a future filled with the ugliness that only a radioactive nightmare could conjure up.

There are no sure things in politics, and any thought of giving up or giving in should be banished, as should those who publicly espouse them to the detriment of the people who call Nevada home.

Don't jump to any conclusions here. I am all for free speech, but the kind of mindless chatter that could send 70,000 tons of the deadliest poison known to man through the streets of Las Vegas, to a burial plot just a few miles from the tourist capital of the world, is not free. It has a cost attached to it that is so dear to the health and safety of our loved ones that no one should be required to pay it against their will.

And that, dear friends, seems to be what is on Sen. Domenici's mind when he suggests that a "political problem" exists in the great state of Nevada.

To that I say hooray and duh! For, if anyone in elected office -- except for former President Bill Clinton, who understood us and acted in our interests -- had been paying attention to Nevadans during the past 20 years, they would have understood from the outset that, except for a few misguided state legislators, the people who live here don't want that stuff anywhere near our children and other living things.

What had been boiling just beneath the surface of this one-sided effort to solve the nuclear industry's problem of what to do with the mess it has made is finally bubbling up through and into the political mindset in Washington that so far has decided to ignore the problem and Nevada as if both will eventually go away.

Well, nuclear waste is not going away anytime soon, at least not for the next 10,000 years, and our citizens' opposition to Nevada being used as a garbage dump, for that which the rest of the states do not want, will never go away. The reason we will never say die is because that could be what happens to the Silver State if we give in. No one wants to have a hand in the signing of their own death warrant.

What New Mexico's senior senator may be giving life to is the idea that in this republic of 50 different and sovereign states, the will of the majority of them should not overrule the will of just one when the result of such a decision could mean a tragic violation of protections afforded by the Constitution of the United States. In short, the concept of states' rights, especially for a good Republican, must be given some meaning if our elected representatives are to be consistent with their oaths of office.

And this state has the same right as every other of our 49 sister states to pursue the hopes and dreams of its citizens. And nowhere in the future of Nevada -- the fastest growing and probably the most envied of the batch -- is there room for radioactive waste. Not when there are other alternatives. Not when there are no other alternatives, either.

The way this country is supposed to work is that when there is a national problem -- and nuclear waste is one -- the entire country is supposed to come together to seek a solution.

That has never been done in the case of nuclear waste and that has always been the Achilles' heel of the effort by the power companies and their minions in Congress to bury their problems in our Yucca Mountain. It is not too late to do so. And if Sen. Domenici's observation has any validity to it, it is high time the rest of the country got real and looked for a solution that doesn't oppress a minority of its people just to favor an unworthy majority.

I say unworthy because Nevadans don't use nuclear power. We don't benefit directly from its use and we don't ask anyone else to bear the burden of our energy needs. These were voluntary decisions by other states to use nuclear power because they thought it was cheaper and cleaner. Those are benefits that were conferred upon the people who received them. To try to push the negative effects onto someone else against their will is not only unfair, it probably violates a few constitutional proscriptions.

In the end, whether legal or not, it just isn't good business or good politics to force Nevada to take this waste that nobody else wants. We have one senator from New Mexico who sees the problem. Will there be more who will see the writing on the wall?

The colonial saying, "Don't tread on me," comes to mind when I think about what the rest of the country is trying to do to Nevada and our efforts to stop that from happening. Those were very powerful words three centuries ago. They are just as powerful today. After all, Pete Domenici heard them, didn't he?

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