Kerry hopes for advantage with stance on repository

Kirsten Searer

Thursday, Aug. 12, 2004 | 11:19 a.m.

John Kerry may have a trump card in Las Vegas -- his pledge to stop the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

And during his visit this week, he wasn't afraid to play it.

"This is a serious promise," he said Wednesday while outlining for local reporters his plan for Yucca Mountain.

"This is not something I'm going to study," he said. "I've studied it. I've voted on it. I've listened to these experts. It's very clear to me that we shouldn't rush this thing."

But during his two-day visit, Kerry also portrayed himself as a moderate -- once calling himself an "entrepreneurial Democrat" -- who could appeal to this closely divided state with his plans for the economy, the war on terror and health care.

On Wednesday he reached out to seniors at Henderson's Valley View Recreation Center and won the endorsement of the Alliance for Retired Americans, a group of 3 million that broke off from the AARP.

During the event, Kerry pummelled President Bush's prescription drug bill, which Kerry said has not stopped the rising drug costs that eat away at seniors' incomes.

He promised to lower prescription drug costs by importing drugs from Canada, buying them in bulk and tightening regulations on drug companies that keep patents so that people cannot buy generic forms of the drugs.

Bush's drug plan doesn't allow for free market competition that would lower drug prices, he said.

"I thought these were the people who believed in the marketplace, in fair competition," he said. "This isn't fair competition, it's a monopoly. And it's been put in place by George Bush and his friends. It's costing you a bunch of extra money.

"It's wrong," he said. "It's fundamentally wrong."

Kerry was warmly received at the event by about 300 people, including many seniors. One Las Vegas first-grade teacher complained that she cannot afford to retire because of her benefits. A Vietnam veteran said his disability benefits from being exposed to Agent Orange have been deducted from his military pension.

After the rally, Teresa Heinz Kerry shook hands and signed autographs until the crowd dwindled, just as she did after Kerry's rally Tuesday at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Kerry briefly mentioned his position on Yucca Mountain, and, as on Tuesday, he garnered cheers from the crowd.

After the event, Kerry explained his position to local reporters.

Republicans have criticized Kerry for voting in 1987 for the so-called "Screw Nevada" bill that singled out Yucca Mountain as the sole site being considered for the nation's nuclear waste.

Kerry said he voted for the bill because he was interested in learning more about a nuclear waste repository.

"Back in 1987, the idea of a national repository seemed like a reasonable thing," he said. "You presume the study's going to come back and say, 'Hey, this really works, it's great, whatever.' It hasn't."

Over the years, Kerry said, he has grown more concerned with the reliability of the casks that would store nuclear waste and the issues of transporting nuclear waste around the country.

The Yucca site, he said, is particularly problematic because it sits on fault lines and water sources. But he said he has begun to question the idea of one centralized repository, no matter where it is.

"I think people would be happier with people who say, 'gee, I'm glad we studied it and I'm glad we learned some things that raised the caution bells,' " he said.

"And there you are," he said. "I subsequently voted no, which puts me in a very different position from George Bush, who is pushing to open the damn thing. There's the difference. He wants to open it, I don't. Big difference."

Kerry said he is unafraid of the pressure he would receive from states that want to get rid of the nuclear waste in their area and from the nuclear industry, which is a powerful force in Washington.

"I'm not prepared to go shove it into someplace, not just Yucca Mountain, anywhere," he said.

Kerry also touched on recent concerns in Las Vegas that there was failed communication between the FBI and local law enforcement agencies over a terrorist cell video that surveyed hotels on The Strip.

His administration would overhaul the terrorism threat system, he said. Local law enforcement agencies need to be informed about potential threats in their area, he said.

"I promise you this, you won't have to struggle to get the answers out of us," he said. "And we'll do it rapidly, proactively, not be dragged kicking and screaming to the table the way this administration has," he said.

He also is interested in establishing crime watch systems in high-risk areas, similar to a neighborhood crime watch, so that people have a better capacity to observe and report potential problems, he said.

The public should be alerted to information when they can provide assistance in combating terror, he said, but should not be routinely scared by warnings the average person can do nothing about.

"The test is whether you're making Americans safer by doing what you're doing," he said.

Kerry said his two-day stay at the Bellagio was his longest in one bed in recent memory. On Tuesday, he ate dinner at the hotel and, according to the Washington Post, stopped Tuesday night to cheer on an aide playing at a $10-minimum blackjack table.

He was in the state long enough to learn how to pronounce its name. On Tuesday, Kerry said "Ne-vah-da" and "Yooka Mountain."

But on Wednesday morning, Henderson Parks and Recreation public information specialist Debra Haskell took it upon herself to pointedly pronounce "Nevada" for Kerry when she met him in a receiving line.

Kerry later told the crowd he is trying not to pronounce the state's name like he is from Massachusetts.