Columnist Jeff German: Let’s make our money talk in ‘04

Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2003 | 11:13 a.m.

If you saw "60 Minutes" on Sunday, you know how hard the Bush administration is pushing to make us the nation's nuclear waste dumping ground.

We are a small state and, though we have a ranking Democrat in the Senate, Assistant Minority Leader Harry Reid, we are considered to have little clout in Washington.

But sometimes I think we underestimate the clout we have.

In 2000 the majority of Nevadans voted for George W. Bush, giving him the state's four electoral votes, which was enough for him to squeak by Vice President Al Gore in the closest presidential race in history.

Bush thanked us by persuading Congress to select Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the repository for 77,000 tons of deadly nuclear waste. Many Nevadans now are wishing they could take their votes back.

Today, as Nevada wages a fight in the courts to stop the waste from coming here, Bush's Department of Energy is secretly mapping out the transportation routes it plans to use to haul the waste from nuclear facilities around the country.

Though we don't know the exact highway routes, they all are sure to pass through Las Vegas, leaving us vulnerable to nuclear accidents and terrorist attacks 24 hours a day.

We are told that we don't have the political influence to stop the shipments.

That may turn out to be true. But it seems to me that we at least have an untapped political weapon in this fight.

All routes in the 2004 presidential race, you see, also are passing through Las Vegas, and that should be worth something.

Since January, a string of Democratic Party presidential hopefuls looking to unseat Bush have visited this city with their hands out, and they are likely to be back for more.

They have come here because they know that this is where the money is. They know that the cash-rich casino industry traditionally has been a big contributor to national political campaigns and, in a crowded presidential field, being able to tap into big-time fund-raising sources is crucial to surviving the cut in 2004.

Howard Dean, the current Democratic front-runner, is the latest to seek the political benefits of the "Land of Milk and Money." He was here on Tuesday following in the footsteps of Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and retired Gen. Wesley Clark. Next to visit is Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

Even President Bush, if you can believe that, plans a fund-raising trip to Las Vegas next month to get his share of the pie.

Maybe it's time we start attaching strings to the money we so freely give out to these presidential candidates. If they can't help up us in the fight against Yucca Mountain, we should tell them to hit the road and not come back.

Yucca Mountain may not be the only issue on the minds of Nevadans, but it's the most important one to our future well-being. The entire country learned that after Sunday's "60 Minutes" piece.

If we continue to welcome presidential contenders without getting a commitment on Yucca Mountain, we'll simply continue to look like fools.