Goodman isn’t optimistic about winning Yucca fight

Diana Sahagun

Thursday, July 11, 2002 | 9:50 a.m.

Although he spent more than three decades as a criminal defense attorney, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said he is not optimistic that Nevada will win its fight against the Yucca Mountain project in the courts.

The courts are the last line of defense for Nevada, after the Senate on Tuesday voted 60-39 to approve the resolution to construct a national nuclear waste dump at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Nevada has several lawsuits pending in federal court designed to kill the project but after Tuesday's vote, Goodman said the issue is purely political rather than based on science.

"I don't trust the legal system necessarily to come up with a righteous decision," Goodman said. "The courts are politicized too when it comes to matters like this. They're under the thumb of the administration. Let's see if the courts have the guts to do the right thing here."

Goodman made his comments Wednesday, hours after arriving in Las Vegas from Washington, where he spent "two brutal days." The self-proclaimed "happiest mayor in the world" was subdued and at times fumed over what he said went on leading up to the vote.

Despite his lack of confidence in the courts, Goodman said the state should not negotiate for benefits and should continue fighting.

"This is not a trade-off, this is not prostitution, this isn't a brothel, this isn't selling yourself to the devil, there's nothing to get in return," Goodman said.

Before he left on his trip, Goodman said he was betting on Nevada to win the fight and thought he could influence several senators to vote against Yucca Mountain. He met with several senators, including Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who voted against Nevada. In the end, Goodman said Republications voted along party lines. Goodman said he did everything he could as mayor, including traveling to Utah in an attempt to influence its senators. At the U.S. Conference of Mayors last month, Goodman helped to approve a resolution that asked Congress to prohibit shipments of nuclear waste unless training and equipment were provided. Both sides of the debate claimed victory on that resolution.

"The city of Las Vegas has no blood on our hands because sometime between now and 2036, in one of those 96,000 shipments there's going to be a disaster and people in America are going to die," Goodman said. "They're going to die a violent, horrible, cancer-caused death and I will have no blood on my hands."