Letter: Bush bragging about Yucca is no surprise

Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2002 | 9:05 a.m.

Regarding the Sun's Sept. 25 story, "Yucca a source of pride for Bush":

In the context of an economy in recession, unfettered corporate scandals and international dissent over the Bush administration's plans to invade Iraq, it is hardly surprising that the White House is attempting to paint endorsement of the flawed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site as a success.

No doubt desperate for any semblance of a victory, the administration is reaching for the one area, the environment, where it has failed most dismally. Having weakened clean air standards and withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol, White House spin doctors have little else to cling to than their misguided seismic solution to the inconvenient stockpile of nuclear waste sitting at U.S. reactors and defense sites nationwide.

Given its fondness for other polluting industries such as oil and coal, the Bush administration likely views jeopardizing the drinking water of Nevadans and the safety of communities on nuclear waste transport routes across the country as just one more boon for its big industry cronies.

LINDA GUNTER

Editor's note: The writer is communications director of the Washington-based Safe Energy Communication Council, a coalition of environmental and public interest groups that promotes energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.