State to take Yucca protest to White House

Benjamin Grove and Erin Neff

Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2002 | 11:10 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada's top leaders are bringing their anti-Yucca Mountain campaign to the White House before President Bush receives a recommendation on the potential nuclear waste repository.

Gov. Kenny Guinn, along with Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., are scheduled to meet with Bush on Thursday. The meeting would fall amid growing their concern that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham will recommend the project to Bush next week, possibly Monday.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., planned to meet Thursday with Karl Rove, the president's political adviser.

"I'm certainly going to place my effort on the scientific information," Guinn said. "I will be professional, but the president has to know directly from us what our stance is.

"I'm not sure he has been given the information we have," Guinn added.

The Nevadans face Bush as the president is facing national security issues over terrorism, and some state leaders fear the president may be swayed by arguments that nuclear waste is safest stored at a single location in Nevada.

"My guess is this administration has been convinced by the nuclear energy industry that terrorism plays a significant role in the decision to move waste to Nevada," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said today. "My argument is that when you put waste in the transit stream it becomes equally vulnerable to terrorists as it is at protected sites at power generating stations."

Nevada's Yucca Mountain watchdog said that the nuclear industry's terrorism arguments are wrong. Some amount of waste will always be stored at power plants as long as they produce it, even if the permanent nuclear waste dump at Yucca is constructed, said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency.

He said that a surface waste storage and transfer station at Yucca would be another potential target.

Mostly, Nevada officials plan to argue to Bush that sending 100,000 shipments of waste across 43 states over 30 or more years gives terrorists many targets.

"Clearly the American public is going to be disturbed by that," Loux said. "(The industry's) whole argument is bogus."

White House and Energy Department spokespeople were not available this morning.

Guinn, who is scheduled to fly to Washington, D.C. Thursday morning, started getting nervous Tuesday when rumors surfaced on Capitol Hill that Abraham would make his recommendation to the president on Sunday.

Guinn's worries grew tenfold when the White House called trying to set up a meeting between Guinn and President George Bush "before the 10th."

"I certainly have my concerns," Guinn said this morning shortly after arriving in Las Vegas for a press conference to announce his trip to Washington. "It was on a very short schedule. That gives me some concerns."

Guinn said he is giving Bush the benefit of the doubt, but fears the administration's hastily called meeting is a grim portent of what Bush will do in coming days after receiving Abraham's recommendation.

"I had requested in the past to have a meeting with the president before he makes his decision," Guinn said. "I assumed that wouldn't happen the same day, or right before, Spencer Abraham tells him the recommendation."

Guinn will meet briefly with Ensign and Reid before their 3:30 p.m. meeting with Bush at the White House.

Gibbons, a longtime Bush supporter who represents the area where the nuclear waste repository would be constructed, said he was irked the president left him out of the White House meeting.

"They only want to meet with the two senators," Gibbons said. "My guess is that they want to keep the number of people and the wrangling about this issue to a minimum. I think it's a complete breach of political ethics.

Ensign would not comment on what he planned to argue to Bush, Ensign spokeswoman Traci Scott said. But she said the Nevada officials would refute arguments that waste should be shipped to Nevada for national security reasons.

Reid was not available this morning. Rove and Reid had planned a dinner for this weekend that had been scheduled months ago, but it was canceled because Rove will be traveling with the president, Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor said.

The Energy Department has invested two decades of research to determine if Yucca Mountain is a suitable site to permanently bury the nation's high-level commercial and defense nuclear waste. Abraham on Jan. 10 told Guinn he would recommend the site to Bush.

By law Abraham had to wait 30 days after notifying the Nevada governor, so Monday would be the first business day he could make the recommendation, although he could make the recommendation this weekend.

Bush's go-ahead, if it comes, would set in motion the DOE's attempt to license and eventually construct the dump site. The project had other hurdles to overcome: an official Nevada objection, a vote on the objection in Congress, plus a years-long licensing process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The dump would not be ready to accept waste until 2010 at the earliest.

Nevada lawmakers are speculating that President Bush could give the project a green light within days or even hours of Abraham's recommendation.

Gibbons said Abraham likely has spent time briefing Bush on Yucca Mountain already.

"My understanding is the decision is going to be made very shortly," Gibbons said.

Bush also sent a signal in the proposed national budget he released Monday. The budget included a 41 percent increase for the Department of Energy office that manages the Yucca project, which would allow the DOE to pursue licensing.

Bush slashed funding by 76 percent for further research of an undeveloped process called transmutation, viewed by some as a possible alternative to long-term waste storage. The process speeds the radioactive breakdown of waste. Nevada lawmakers back the research.

Guinn said he is prepared to tell Bush what options Nevada has if the president approves Abraham's recommendation, beginning with the governor's veto ability.

"No matter what he does, we will be doing what we have to do," Guinn said.

Guinn is also prepared to mention Nevada's lawsuits, although he said he will bring up the legal remedies "in a way that's certainly not a threat."

And although he admits he is facing an uphill battle, Guinn said he hopes Bush will remain true to his past statements that his decision will be about science and not politics.

"I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt," Guinn said.

A nuclear industry spokesman today said the White House was keeping its intention under wraps.

"They are keeping it pretty tight," said Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top trade group. "We haven't heard anything."

But anti-Yucca activists said the writing is on the wall: Bush plans to quickly approve Abraham's recommendation. That would not be a surprise because Abraham and Bush are longtime nuclear energy supporters, said Lisa Gue, nuclear waste analyst for Public Citizen.