Columnist Jon Ralston: Yucca teases and heartaches

Friday, Aug. 13, 2004 | 5:17 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at ralston@vegas.com.

WEEKEND EDITION

August 14 - 15, 2004

Like a wallflower magically transformed into the belle of the ball, Nevada has been invited onto the presidential dance floor for the first time.

And as two suitors waltzed with the state last week, the Democrats took John Kerry by the hand and showed they knew how to lead, while the Republicans swooned before the president and demonstrated they were willing to fall into his arms again.

A political phenomenon as rare as Halley's comet is occurring here. And whether or not Yucca Mountain matters in your vote for president, the performances of the White House hopefuls and the local pols is telling. Two decades of nuclear waste dump politics have been reversed -- instead of being impotent, the state now has immense power as both candidates cannot afford, as so many have done, to ignore this puny state and its five electoral votes.

The facts are ineluctable, no matter how each side tries to spin it.

Bush returned last week with the confidence of a political Lothario who had his way with the state in 2000. He had a one-election stand by promising he would consider the dump's science. After getting what all presidential candidates want -- the state's electoral votes -- Bush developed amnesia about that pledge.

Kerry arrived in Nevada last week with his inconstancy exposed and was forced to explain why anyone should believe his willingness to be faithful now. Pressed by the state's Democrats, Kerry was more specific than any president or presidential candidate has ever been in committing to Nevada -- he insisted the dump will not happen on his watch, that he will veto any attempt to change radiation standards and he will not allow the project to be submitted for licensing. That's a pretty ironclad pre-nup, if you ask me.

The difference between the Democrats and the Republicans here is significant, too. The Democrats have been disingenuous and foolish; the Republicans have been craven and criminally negligent.

You cannot paper over Kerry's record on the dump. The Democrats tried to portray their man as the state's greatest friend on this issue; then when confronted with his mixed record, they spun themselves into a frenzy.

Here are the facts:

Kerry is a senator from the Northeast who, like his regional colleagues, needed a solution to the nuclear waste problem for parochial reasons and fully supported getting the waste to Yucca Mountain starting in 1987. Despite expressed reservations, when the final votes came for narrowing the sites from three to one, Kerry voted to do so. The Democrats here tried to say it wasn't significant, but even Kerry acknowledged last week that it was a substantive vote.

Kerry and the locals continue to be dishonest when they label his subsequent votes -- until he joined Sen. Harry Reid in 2000 and 2002 as a Yucca opponent -- as merely procedural. They were not, including 1996 and 1997 votes with prime dump proponent Frank Murkowski, the GOP energy chairman, to kill Nevada delegation attempts to determine how radiation standards would be set and to empower governors with waste routes to bar shipments from their states. And through 1999, Kerry continued to write letters with his pals from the Northeast urging Murkowski and Congress to move forward with Yucca Mountain.

Kerry finally acknowledged last week that he was for the dump until more and more scientific evidence came in and he decided to side with the state. That is at least defensible and credible, whether or not his real motivation was, after the battle was lost, to side with Reid for partisan reasons.

As for Bush, the only thing more incredible than his patronizing attitude toward Nevada is the cathouse full of Republican leaders here who continue to give it away for free. With the political calculus all in their favor, what concession did Gov. Kenny Guinn, Attorney General Brian Sandoval and the GOP delegation members extract from the president to continue to support his candidacy here?

"Well, I appreciate your opinion," the president said he told the Nevada folks, metaphorically patting them on the heads, "but I'll tell you what I will do. I will allow this process to be appealed to the courts and to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And I will stand by the decision of the courts and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."

Allow it to be appealed? This is what the state's Republicans are proud they got Bush to say -- that the president will follow the law and the Constitution. Halleleujah!

And people want to impeach GOP Controller Kathy Augustine for pressuring employees to work on her campaign? If ever there were an impeachable offense, this malfeasance of duty by the state's Republican guard is it. Let that be their legacy -- that they, to use the president's verbiage, allowed it to happen.

But no one ever seems to pay any penalty, except perhaps Nevada voters, who have endured a plague of rhetoric and promises from our politicians on Yucca Mountain.

Here's what should happen: If the Republicans cannot wring any significant concessions from the president before the election, they should agree to forfeit their offices. And if Kerry wins and then doesn't halt the project, the Democratic leaders here should resign.

After years of Nevadans being courted and trifled with, that kind of personal responsibility and commitment is a consummation devoutly to be wished.