Lieberman: Bush knuckled under on Yucca Mountain

Jace Radke

Thursday, Nov. 20, 2003 | 9:53 a.m.

Sen. Joe Lieberman attacked the Bush administration during a fund-raising stop in Las Vegas Wednesday, saying the president has broken a promise to use sound science to determine if a national nuclear waste repository should be based at Yucca Mountain.

"The scientific and environmental information out there has not convinced me that (storing waste at Yucca) is the right and safe thing to do," said Lieberman, of Connecticut, who has voted against Yucca Mountain as a storage site. "It's above the water table, and there are questions about the site and about transporting nuclear waste across the country."

The Democratic presidential candidate met with reporters at McCarran International Airport Wednesday before heading to a private fund-raiser.

Southern Nevada has become a frequent fund-raising stop this year for White House aspirants. Lieberman is the fifth Democratic presidential candidate to visit Southern Nevada this year. Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri is scheduled to visit Las Vegas on Friday.

President Bush is scheduled to make his first trip to Las Vegas on Tuesday for a fund-raiser. Vice President Dick Cheney was in Las Vegas in July to raise campaign money.

The state, which went to Bush three years ago, is expected to carry more importance in the 2004 presidential election than it has in the past as candidates seek its now five electoral votes. Bush won the last election by four electoral votes, when Nevada had four votes.

Lieberman told reporters that if he is elected he would need to be convinced that the site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was suitable.

Lieberman said that when Bush signed legislation last year to store 77,000 tons of radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, the president was "knuckling under to special interests."

"I would take a look at it as president, and if I wasn't convinced it was safe, I would not let it go forward," Lieberman said. "We've gotten a lot smarter since the site was first proposed 25 years ago, and we should be able to come up with some way to recycle nuclear waste and not have to transport it across the country."

His Wednesday fund-raiser was scheduled for Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, and was hosted by former Sen. Richard Bryan and former Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones.

When asked if he planned to gamble while in Las Vegas, Lieberman said, "I will before I leave. I promised (Sen.) Harry Reid that I would contribute to the local economy."

"Nevada is my kind of state," he said. "It's moderate and independent-minded, and that's the kind of Democrat I am."

Lieberman also criticized Bush on the economy, health care and the war in Iraq, saying that the efforts of the military have not been followed up with an effective restructuring of government in Iraq.

"The thing that went right in Iraq was the American military," Lieberman said. "Unfortunately the Bush administration has done a terrible job of moving from the military victory to reconstruction.

"An Iraqi self-government needed to be put in place, and we're finally doing that."

Lieberman also said that he was troubled with federal law enforcement agencies using the Patriot Act in investigations that do not involve terrorism, which happened in Las Vegas when FBI officials requested financial records of current and former politicians in connection with an ongoing political corruption investigation.

"I think a lot of us recognized that we were working in an emergency climate (when the Patriot Act was passed) and that we had to give emergency power to law enforcement," Lieberman said. "The thing about the Patriot Act is that a lot of the powers sunset in 2005. The act will undergo an extensive review in Congress next year."08