Cheney avoids protesters during visit to Las Vegas

Malia Spencer

Tuesday, July 22, 2003 | 11:14 a.m.

Braving triple-digit heat Monday, about 100 Las Vegas Valley residents stood at the corner of West Tropicana Avenue and Rainbow Boulevard hoping to show Vice President Dick Cheney a united front against the proposed nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain.

"Lovely day for a protest," Dan Geary of the National Environmental Trust said.

Holding handmade signs that read "Nevada's had enough with Dick Cheney's lies" and "Mr. Cheney, why do you hate Nevada?" protesters stood across the street from the brown stucco wall that held them at bay from the Spanish Trail community where a $2,000-a-plate fund-raising luncheon with the vice president took place.

The fund-raiser brought in between $300,000 and $320,000, according to Republican sources.

Members of various groups ranging from the Culinary Union to the Sierra Club to Citizens Alert and even a few Republicans came out to speak against the proposed nuclear waste dump.

Nathan Emens, chairman of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas chapter of College Republicans, said he supports this administration but, on the issue of Yucca Mountain, "we agree to disagree."

Emens said he does not support the Yucca Mountain plan and thinks Nevada is "getting the short end of the stick."

Fellow Republican Anthony Bandiero, a Young Republicans of Nevada national committeeman, said he doesn't want to see nuclear waste come to Yucca Mountain but warned that if it does, the state needs to have a backup plan to protect its interests.

Geary said he attended the protest as "a reminder to the administration that next year a decisive factor in the presidential election is Yucca Mountain."

Organizers originally thought the vice president's motorcade would pass the protest, Jane Feldman, a Sierra Club volunteer, said, but she found out Monday morning that he would enter Spanish Trail from another entrance.

She considered that a sign that the vice president knew his visit had drawn opposition, and she expected that, even if he didn't see the protesters, he would hear about them through media coverage.

Protesters crowded the corner of West Tropicana Avenue and Rainbow Boulevard in an effort to stay in the shade of three small trees for the 45-minute protest.

Geary was among those criticizing the administration's handling of Yucca Mountain, saying the current policy is to ensure the dump is built in as few as four years. Because of the timetable, officials are trying to make the site meet preset standards politically rather than through science, he said.

"There are hundreds of questions left unanswered," he said.

Paul Brown, Southern Nevada director of Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, called Cheney's fund-raising stop in Las Vegas arrogant.

"First they dump on us, now they want our money," he said.

Brown stressed that the Yucca Mountain plan is "not a done deal."

"As long as we have a pulse we will fight them," he said.

Peggy Maze Johnson, executive director of Citizens Alert, said the protest showed Nevada citizens "are holding Yucca Mountain against the administration."

She said there has been a rush to judgment on the plan because the administration wants more nuclear power.

With the help of transportation experts, Maze Johnson said, they estimate 1,000 transportation accidents involving the movement of nuclear waste will occur in a 30-year period.

"We don't want it here. We don't want it moved," she said.

She added the administration is minimizing the number of accidents that are predicted and the extent of potential damage.

George Matthews, another Sierra Club member, expressed disappointment that Cheney didn't see the protesters en route to the fund-raiser.

"It is terrible that people with dissenting views are pushed away from the event," he said, referring to the protest taking place across the street.

But the protest organizers said they thought the demonstration was successful in showing that Nevada citizens care about what happens at Yucca Mountain. They were especially encouraged by the turnout.

"For 100 people to show up in the sun on a political issue, that's a sign," Geary said.

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