GOP nails down anti-Yucca plank

Erin Neff

Monday, May 20, 2002 | 9:14 a.m.

A day after some rank-and-file Republicans said Yucca Mountain is inevitable and should cause Nevada leaders to make a deal with the government, the state GOP adopted an anti-dump plank.

Nevada Republican Party Chairman Bob Seale started Saturday's state convention session both admonishing Democrats and telling his delegates that Yucca is still a fight.

On Friday several discussions about negotiating for benefits drew sharp contrast to the platform plank adopted the previous weekend by Democrats at their state convention. In a published report Saturday Democratic congressional candidate Dario Herrera criticized Republicans for -- at the time -- failing to have an anti-dump plank in their platform.

A miffed Seale told delegates at his convention that Democrats shouldn't criticize an open dialogue Republicans allow when forming their platform.

"They go into the back room when they have their conventions," Seale said. "They tell people what their platform is."

On Saturday, following a full day of speeches from Republican leaders who have been fighting Yucca Mountain, the state GOP did adopt an anti-Yucca plank.

A table outside the convention floor offered signs and T-shirts proclaiming Nevada is not a wasteland and that residents don't want the repository.

U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and one of just 13 Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted against a resolution to send the nation's nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, encouraged his party by slamming Democrats.

"They are trying to divide voters on the issue that already unites us," Gibbons said.

He added that blaming GOP congressional candidates Jon Porter and Lynette Boggs McDonald for Yucca Mountain "is like trying to blame Nevada for all of the nuclear waste around the country."

Following Gibbons, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., rallied his party to "stand with its leaders" on Yucca Mountain.

Boggs McDonald, Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General candidate Brian Sandoval also condemned Yucca Mountain.

Bob Beers, chairman of the party's platform committee and a state assemblyman from Las Vegas, said the anti-Yucca plank replaced an anti-abortion plank to win passage in the adopted platform.

The anti-Yucca plank read: "We support Nevada's elected officials' fight against the Yucca Mountain project, but in the event the battle is lost, we urge Nevada public officials to work with the Bush administration for the maximum benefit for Nevada."

Support for Question 2 -- an initiative seeking to define marriage as a union between a man and woman -- was also adopted in the platform.