Editorial: The score: politics 41, science 6

Friday, April 26, 2002 | 5:24 a.m.

On Thursday the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved Yucca Mountain as the site for a nuclear waste repository in a 41-6 vote. On the same day, Science magazine reported that politics have dominated the site selection and that science "continues to be only a marginal consideration." The article should be a wake-up call for anyone out there who still believes the government's line that "science" will determine Yucca Mountain's fate.

A Yucca vote by the full House is expected within two weeks. All indications are that the nuclear industry's lobbying budget and President Bush's pro-Yucca political view will once again prevail. Eminent scientists have for years warned about the safety of Yucca Mountain, but it's the politicians fronting for the nuclear industry who wield the influence. The Science magazine authors, one from the University of Michigan and the other from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote that Yucca Mountain "... is based on an unsound engineering strategy and poor use of present understanding of the properties of spent nuclear fuel." Nevertheless, many House members, especially those who have nuclear power plants in their districts, want to get rid of the waste no matter how dangerous the transportation or how unsafe the mountain. They say on-site storage po ses security risks for power plants, but with the U.S. nuclear industry generating 2,000 tons of waste a year, nuclear powe! r plants will always have on-site storage.

Obviously, the nuclear industry's big campaign contributions and glad-handing lobbyists have more influence on House members than even the government's own scientists and analysts. Science magazine noted reports by three federal agencies -- the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste, the General Accounting Office and the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board -- that all found serious flaws in the scientific and technical reports so far produced about Yucca.

The nation's hope lies with the U.S. Senate, which should listen more to these scientists and less to the mouthpieces for the nuclear power industry.