Columnist Jeff German: Silenced Yucca critics will be heard

Wednesday, May 28, 2003 | 11:12 a.m.

The Department of Energy may have thrown Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign a curve before today's hearing on Yucca Mountain.

But it's not likely to stop the Nevada senators from hitting the DOE hard and bringing to light problems within the high-level nuclear waste project.

It is true that the 11th-hour decision not to testify by two whistleblowers who exposed flaws in the DOE's quality assurance program at Yucca Mountain, Donald Harris and Robert Clark, will take some punch out of the hearing.

The home team was forced to abandon its game plan after the DOE persuaded Harris and Clark over the weekend that it would be in their best professional interest not to tell all in Las Vegas.

Their testimony would have made a big splash in Team Nevada's bid to show the country that the DOE can't assure Americans that Yucca Mountain is safe to store the deadly nuclear waste.

"60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft and his film crew, working on an upcoming Yucca Mountain piece, are planning to attend the hearing, which is being conducted under the auspices of the Senate's energy and water subcommittee, where Reid is the ranking Democrat.

Despite the loss of their star witnesses, Reid and Ensign still may have an opportunity to score points with the national media.

Enter Plan B -- bashing the DOE today for trying to stonewall the senators.

"We've got people who are whistleblowers, but they won't testify because they are afraid they're going to lose their jobs," Reid said Tuesday. "That says it all.

"We're going to get the testimony of these people one way or another. The DOE can't Watergate this."

The new strategy isn't as good as having actual testimony exposing safety problems at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But it's the next best thing.

Since the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon administration nearly 30 years ago, the media has loved a good government cover-up. That's how "60 Minutes" earned its reputation at CBS.

In this case Reid and Ensign now can ask the obvious questions. Why is the DOE afraid to let Harris and Clark testify? And what is the DOE hiding -- a trail of deception and maybe an inability to justify whether Yucca Mountain is scientifically sound?

Nevada leaders have long accused the federal agency of not being straight with the American people about the multibillion-dollar Yucca Mountain project.

By shutting down these two witnesses, the DOE has made it easier for that claim to stick. And it has given Reid and Ensign a rallying cry that will resonate with the national media.

Finally, the battle over Yucca Mountain has come down to an issue that news organizations outside Nevada can sink their teeth into.