Editorial: Yucca vote imperils the nation

Wednesday, July 10, 2002 | 9:37 a.m.

Perhaps the low point during Tuesday's U.S. Senate debate on Yucca Mountain -- preceding its 60-39 vote in favor of sending nuclear waste to Nevada -- came when Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., admonished opposing senators for instilling "fear" into their constituents by raising issues of transportation safety. He said the chance of anything dangerous happening while high-level nuclear waste is transported cross-country daily for 30 or 40 years is "so unlikely" that it should "not be of concern to us as we move forward with this legislation." The remark was reminiscent of 1950s Atomic Energy Commission rhetoric, advising people not to worry about fallout from the nuclear bomb explosions at the Nevada Test Site. We have all -- particularly the people who lived downwind of the Test Site -- seen how those words have come back to plague us.

Kyl's remark was directed at such senators as Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., who criticized the vote as irresponsibly premature because there is no transportation plan; John Ensign, R-Nev., who pointed out that a terrorist attack could puncture the canisters containing the waste; Mark Dayton, D-Minn., who reminded his colleagues that just "one accident" could have "devastating effects"; Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who warned that "transportation is a disaster waiting to happen" in population centers such as Sacramento and Los Angeles; Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who said the people of Washington have learned the hard way about following the "trust me" approach; Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who shuddered at what could happen to Lake Michigan as it's traversed by barges carrying nuclear waste; Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., who spoke to the fear in her state's neighborhoods at the prospect of nuclear waste trundling along nearby highways; Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who envisioned "hundreds, e! ven thousands, of rolling dirty bombs" primed for terrorists, and Harry Reid, D-Nev., who painted a picture of trucks, trains and barges merging incessantly into the country's regular, accident-prone traffic.

While the opponents of burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain spoke persuasively about the risk to human life if the Senate, with a yes vote, propelled Yucca toward possible licensure by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, supporters spoke of the inconvenience and expense of having to put the plan on hold. They predicted dire consequences, including temporary storage on Indian reservations and opening up expensive studies of previously dismissed sites in Texas and Washington. Not only that, they said taxpayers would absorb upward to $70 billion in federal payouts to nuclear energy companies who would surely win lawsuits arguing the government breached its contract to take their waste.

Led by the Senate Republican leadership, the supporters of Yucca Mountain absolved themselves from any responsibility over what might happen in the future. They stated repeatedly that theirs was not a vote to open Yucca Mountain, but a simple passing of the torch to the "experts" associated with the NRC. Over the next several years, this demonstrably pro-Yucca agency will review studies before deciding whether to grant Yucca Mountain a license to become a nuclear waste dump. The state will mount a legal challenge to block the dump, but the truth is that Tuesday's vote was a powerful blow to the safety of millions of Americans for at least the next several generations if the dump receives federal regulatory approval. Voting no could have allowed waste to be stored safely on the site of nuclear power plants for the next hundred years or so, until such time a s a sane plan for its disposal could have been constructed. While we might speculate about their motivations -- party polit! ics, the spell of monied lobbyists -- there is no doubt what the supporters of Yucca Mountain have done: It is they who have instilled the fear.