Editorial: New budget in love with nuke dump

Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2002 | 8:47 a.m.

To get a real understanding of a president's priorities you have to look past the political theater of the State of the Union address and examine the president's budget, where you'll find the nitty-gritty of his true agenda. The federal government program Nevadans care most about is the Yucca Mountain project -- and President Bush's proposed budget on nuclear waste storage contains bad news for residents of this state.

Not only does the Department of Energy want to increase the Yucca Mountain project's budget by 41 percent over last year, but the budget also assumes that the project will go forward. The reason why that is important is that Bush hasn't officially signed off on Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation to build a dump at Yucca Mountain. But the budget signals that Bush, in fact, has made up his mind and will give the project a green light. It is against this backdrop that Gov. Kenny Guinn, who is scheduled to meet with Bush at the White House on Thursday, will try to persuade the president to reject a nuclear waste dump in Nevada.

It also is troubling that the department wants nuclear waste to be sent to Nevada by 2010 -- even though it's considered highly unlikely that a repository will be licensed by then and ready to accept the waste. Department officials contend that an above-ground storage site they want to build near Yucca Mountain, and where the waste would be sent, only would be a staging area for a permanent repository, but they're playing word games. What really would happen is that there would be a temporary storage dump in Nevada, something that federal law is supposed to prohibit.

The Bush administration also is setting aside funding to devise a rail system in Nevada that would help send nuclear waste on its way to Yucca Mountain. But there still is no answer to the question of how the waste could be transported safely through Nevada or along the nation's highways and roads.

There still are too many serious questions that remain regarding Yucca Mountain -- matters involving the safety of nuclear waste's storage and transportation -- for anyone to move forward so aggressively regarding this project. Nevertheless, the administration's damn-the-torpedoes policy on nuclear waste storage is for real, and it will be a tough fight for Nevada's congressional delegation as it works to block the funding increase for the Yucca Mountain project.