Editorial: Abraham to Nevada: Glow to hell

Friday, Jan. 11, 2002 | 4:25 a.m.

On Thursday Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended that President Bush approve the construction of a nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Despite the enormity of the matter -- the permanent burial of 77,000 tons of man's deadliest waste -- there was no suspense leading up to Abraham's decision. The Department of Energy has demonstrated for years in its investigation into Yucca Mountain's suitability that it doesn't give a whit about science, and it has ignored evidence showing how dangerous it is to bury nuclear waste just 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. When he was a U.S. senator, Abraham voted for legislation that would have made it easier to store nuclear waste in Nevada. George W. Bush also has been a champion of nuclear power, an industry that is doing everything it can to get a dump built at Yucca Mountain.

Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn said Abraham's decision "stinks" -- and we couldn't agree more. But while the governor is holding his nose, Guinn should remember that he and other prominent Republicans in this state are the ones who helped persuade a plurality of Nevadans in 2000 to give the state's four electoral votes to Bush. They assured us that Bush, even though he was embraced by the nuclear power industry, would treat Nevada fairly on the nuclear waste dump issue. If this is the Bush administration's definition of fairness, we'd hate to see what the White House would do to us if it was angry.

Despite Abraham's recommendation, this fight isn't over -- in many ways it is just starting. Assuming that Bush ultimately agrees with Abraham's recommendation, and Guinn uses his veto to object to the president's declaration, both the House and the Senate would have to affirm the president's decision by a majority vote. So members of Nevada's congressional delegation will have an opportunity to court their colleagues to join them in this battle.

The state's delegation could get a boost from our city and county officials. As elected officials from Southern Nevada meet and contact their counterparts who live along what would be the transportation routes for high-level nuclear waste, they will have an opportunity to make a persuasive case about the dangers posed to their constituents by the thousands of shipments that would occur from across the country. It would be a tremendous help if municipal officials in other states contacted their members of Congress and told them that they don't want nuclear waste rolling through their towns, shipments that could result in accidents or be the target of terrorist attacks. Nevada's gaming industry says that it will lobby members of Congress about the matter, too. It's about time the industry stepped up to the plate. If a transportation accident ever were to hap pen in the city, the tourism industry would be devastated.

The odds of getting Congress to derail the dump aren't promising, though. In the Republican-controlled House, Speaker Dennis Hastert has been one of the most vocal supporters of a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, and Republican members would fear crossing him. To get an idea of just how rabid Hastert is on this issue, on Thursday he said those who opposed the dump were engaging in "left-wing political grandstanding," a characterization that will dumbfound conservative and moderate Nevadans who oppose the dump.

In the Senate, the situation would be somewhat better, because the Democrats are in charge and Nevada's Harry Reid is the assistant majority leader. Still, it would be an uphill battle since the Democrats hold just a one-vote majority. And not all Democrats can be counted on, either, since many of them represent some of the 31 states with nuclear power plants looking to get rid of the waste. Reid will have to make a strong push, as will Republican John Ensign, who argued in his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat in 2000 that Nevada needed a Republican so that the state's residents would have a voice within that party on Yucca Mountain.

Of course, fighting it out in Congress, or opposing Yucca Mountain's selection in the courts, wouldn't be necessary if the president simply would honor the pledge that he and Dick Cheney made to Nevadans during the 2000 campaign -- that they wouldn't approve a dump that wasn't scientifically sound. A recent report by the General Accounting Office, the independent investigative arm of Congress, recommended that the Bush administration postpone a decision on Yucca Mountain because there were 293 unanswered questions about the project, matters that included questions about the mountain's geology and just how well the nuclear waste storage casks would hold up over time and keep the waste from spilling out.

As the president weighs Abraham's recommendation, he should reflect on his only campaign stop in Nevada, one that he made in June 2000 at Lake Tahoe to demonstrate his commitment to the environment. Bush talked about the importance of being a "steward of the earth." Well, it's time for the president to be that steward. Bush should reject Abraham's recommendation and stop wasting billions of dollars on an ill-fated project that would put in harm's way not only Nevadans, but also all those millions of Americans who live along the nation's major highway and railway lines.