Editorial: Who does he think will believe this?

Friday, Sept. 27, 2002 | 6:02 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: Sept. 29, 2002

The White House has been circulating a draft document highlighting what it believes are President Bush's environmental successes. Eventually that environmental scorecard will be published, most likely on the White House's website. Nevadans will be taken aback, though, by one of the administration's purported accomplishments -- Congress' approval of the president's plan to bury 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada.

Only in Washington, where spin doctors work overtime to make hapless politicians look like wise men, would anyone have the chutzpah to suggest that it's an environmental triumph to ship man's deadliest waste thousands of miles -- along routes with millions of people nearby -- to Nevada's Yucca Mountain, where it would then be buried in an active earthquake zone.

During the 2000 campaign, Bush pledged that he would treat Nevada fairly on Yucca Mountain, basing his decision on science. The president, we subsequently found out, lied to us. That was bad enough, but Bush should stop these pathetic efforts to turn Yucca Mountain into something it isn't.