Democrats say Bush didn’t address Yucca problems

Kirsten Searer

Friday, Aug. 13, 2004 | 11:13 a.m.

Democrats have called on President Bush to talk about Yucca Mountain for months, and after hearing him Thursday they remained unsatisfied.

"He has spoken loud and clear, and now the people of the state of Nevada need to speak equally clearly," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "And they'll do that in November."

Bush told about 1,300 supporters that he looked to science when he decided to proceed with the project and will heed the decisions of the court system and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"I said I would listen to the scientists, those involved with determining whether or not this project could move forward in a safe manner," Bush said. "And that's exactly what I did."

But Berkley pointed out that a recent federal court decision pointed to a standard that suggests the project be designed to hold nuclear waste for 300,000 years. The standard for the project, however, is 10,000 years.

"They missed the mark by 290,000 years," Berkley said.

Despite the court ruling, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has said the Yucca project will continue until the matter is resolved.

"If he was serious about standing with the people of the state of Nevada, he would have stopped this project instead of fighting the ruling," Berkley said.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, a Democrat, mocked the president's assertion that he would follow the court challenges.

"He doesn't have a choice, does he?" Goodman said.

Regardless of what the president says, "he's shown his true colors" on the issue, Goodman said.

Some Republicans said Thursday they were glad that the president commented on the issue while in Las Vegas.

Before they rode with Bush from the airport to the event Thursday, both Reps. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Jon Porter, R-Nev., said they were glad the president was addressing the issue. They said they planned to express concerns about Yucca Mountain to the president -- just as they said they do every time they see him.

In his visit to Las Vegas, Bush made it clear that he is not allowing politics to influence his decisions, said Porter spokesman Adam Mayberry.

"Congressman Porter was very pleased that President Bush took Yucca Mountain head on," Mayberry said. "But that doesn't stop the fact that Congressman Porter is dead set against bringing 70,000 tons of nuclear waste to Nevada, period."

Soon after his speech, Democrats issued a press release saying that Bush claims to have relied on science but ignored the more than 200 scientific questions that remain to be answered about Yucca Mountain.

Nor did he address a 2001 General Accounting Office study that urged the Bush administration to postpone the waste site just a few months before Bush approved the site. The study said that plans for Yucca Mountain "may not describe the facilities that (the Department of Education) would actually develop."

Democratic party spokesman Jon Summers said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry spoke with local print reporters for about 30 minutes on Wednesday and answered questions about Yucca Mountain.

Bush, he said, "chose to slip out the back door and avoid any sincere discussions about the most important issue facing our state."

Hundreds of people protested Bush outside of the event at the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America training center, including many members of other unions, who criticized the carpenters for hosting the president.

In recent years, some building trade unions have said that Yucca Mountain would provide construction jobs. But Monte Byers, chief of staff for the Carpenters Union, said Yucca Mountain was not the impetus for hosting the president.

"That's not our emphasis," he said. "We've been working with the administration in a number of areas, none of them are related to Yucca Mountain."

A few years ago the union had issued an invitation to the president to tour the Las Vegas facility, and the White House recently informed them that Bush would take their offer, Byers said. Byers said the union has received a couple of calls in protest.