Letter: Yucca Mountain all about politics

Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2002 | 8:27 a.m.

Do you want to know what I think? Based on my experience as a former employee of the Department of Defense and as a retired defense industry employee who has survived mass layoffs of half a million or more defense workers, I know of the ruthless, unstoppable power of the unelected, bureaucratic, unaccountable, executive branch of our federal government.

In spite of multimillion-dollar arm-waving against the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain by Nevada's U.S. representatives and senators, by Nevada state elected officials, by Clark County elected officials, and by Las Vegas city elected officials, the federal administration behemoth ruthlessly will see to it that Yucca Mountain will become the national nuclear waste repository.

Yucca Mountain is only a "useful" political football for elected Nevada officials, who cynically know the ultimate outcome. Cunning Nevada politicians know that they always win popularity by riding the bandwagon against Yucca Mountain and by eventually failing "heroically" in the fight against the mammoth federal bureaucracy.

Of course any Nevada elected official in favor of the Yucca Mountain project will be committing political suicide.

FRANK PELTESON