Columnist Erin Neff: Yucca fight gets partisan, personal

Erin Neff

Friday, March 22, 2002 | 4:56 a.m.

MAKE NO MISTAKE about it, the state's fight against Yucca Mountain is not Nevada versus the rest of the country -- it's every politician for himself.

The signs are as prevalent as the campaign placards already blighting the landscape: political posturing, finger-pointing and laying blame.

It is troubling as Nevada's bi-partisan coalition showed signs of crumbling, turning the state's biggest fight into party politics. If it becomes an intramural squabble, Nevada's slim chances of stopping the nuclear dump dry up.

The problems began when U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who once promised Democrats would block the proposed nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, said he can no longer make good on that promise.

Immediately, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., saw an opportunity for a fall guy -- conveniently from the other party and a possible foe to their president in 2004.

"The majority leader is the only person who can bring an issue to the floor for an up-and-down vote," Ensign said Wednesday.

Daschle promptly scolded Ensign, giving himself an out in the event Nevada's position does not prevail in the U.S. Senate.

"Sen. Ensign's going to have to do a little more study before he speaks," Daschle told reporters during a press conference.

Well, Mr. Daschle should have done his homework, too.

Last May during a fund-raiser in Las Vegas, Daschle proclaimed the dump was dead if Democrats held the majority. Now he says anyone can bring the item for a vote, and there can be no filibuster under the expedited rules set forth by the legislation that set Yucca Mountain in motion.

The only way Nevada can uphold Gov. Kenny Guinn's expected veto is with 51 votes in the Senate. Daschle says on the Republican side Ensign has only been able to get himself and Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., to oppose Yucca Mountain.

Daschle said to defeat the nuclear waste dump, Ensign will have to rally the Republicans to vote with him.

"I would only hope he could get a majority (of the Republicans,) and we could defeat this legislation," Daschle said. "But only if he gets close to a majority of his caucus will we be able to do that."

Not one to let Ensign take the fall for the expected blow to Nevada by the Senate, Gibbons also decided it was safe to lash out at Daschle -- criticizing Sen. Harry Reid wouldn't make the state's Yucca fight seem bipartisan.

"Nevadans expect him to remain true to his word," Gibbons said Thursday. "Anything less would be a blatant lie to the people of Nevada."

Bush -- during a fund-raising trip to Nevada in 2000 -- said he would base any Yucca Mountain decision on sound science, and not politics. Democrats from Reid to Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman decried the president's decision with Reid going so far as to call Bush a "liar."

The coalition stayed together through that because it was seen as Nevada versus the nation, and nobody expected the president to do anything but approve it. But now things are getting more complex. Daschle's promise provided hope.

Without that hope, the strain on the Nevada coalition is showing and it appears the players are looking for people to blame.

Reid, the Senate's assistant majority leader, has channeled one excuse through Daschle -- the rules were stacked against Nevada because Senate leaders can neither keep the vote from reaching the floor nor filibuster until the 90-day window to act expires.

But Reid also slyly set someone else up for blame -- the Republican governor of Nevada.

By pressuring Guinn to call a special session of the Legislature, Reid is both begging for more money and forcing the governor into an election year box.

If Guinn doesn't call the special session and Nevada loses in the U.S. Senate, Reid can lament the lack of funding the state contributed to the fight and remind everyone that Guinn's party is the one that fast-tracked the dump.

Perhaps state Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio -- saying he doesn't think the state can find money for the fight -- summed it up best, noting that the matter has become "a political football."

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