Columnist Jeff German: Yucca ruling exposes Bush lies

Friday, July 9, 2004 | 5:17 a.m.

Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

WEEKEND EDITION

July 10 - 11, 2004

If ever there was proof that "sound science" did not play a role in the selection of Yucca Mountain, it was handed to Nevada on a silver platter last week by a federal appeals court in Washington.

The court found that the Environmental Protection Agency deliberately rejected the advice of the scientific community and adopted standards for the high-level nuclear waste dump that weren't safe for Nevadans.

President Bush used those standards when he recommended Yucca Mountain to Congress in 2002, which means there is no way in the world that his decision was based on "sound science," as he promised on the campaign trail here in 2000.

The court's ruling is proof that the president out-and-out lied to us. And it is proof that his nuclear waste policy, which is beholden to the powerful nuclear industry, is rotten to the core.

The heart of the court's opinion is that the EPA unlawfully ignored the research of the National Academy of Sciences when it decided that the radioactive waste only had to be safely stored inside the nearby mountain for 10,000 years. The academy recommended that the safety standard be set for a far longer period, hundreds of thousands of years.

Unless it appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court and prevails, the Bush administration now has two options. It can order the EPA to begin the long and tedious process of formulating tougher safety standards it knows Yucca Mountain probably can't meet. Or, with the help of big energy money, it can try to convince Congress to snub the appeals court and change the law to allow the weaker, unsafe EPA standards.

Neither option can be politically appealing to the administration.

And do you think the president is looking forward to meeting the voters of Nevada in the coming weeks having been exposed as a liar? Do you think he wants to keep hearing that his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, has pledged to kill the dump he's forcing upon us?

I don't think so.

The one person smiling more than the top Nevada officials who fought hard to earn this legal victory is Kerry, who knows the court decision has improved his chances of winning the state's five electoral votes.

"It makes Kerry look better every day," said Sen. Harry Reid, Nevada's Democratic patriarch, who called the court decision a "serious wound" to Yucca Mountain.

Nevadans have an incentive to vote for a president who would use any means available to him to stop the dump -- even vetoing congressional legislation aimed at lessening its safety standards.

The ultimate irony here is that what happens in Nevada, a key battleground state, could easily determine the outcome of the presidential race. That means Bush's flawed and mean-spirited Yucca Mountain policy could end up leading to his political demise.

On Friday the Kerry campaign was quick to capitalize on the appeals court ruling.

"The court decision," the campaign said, "confirms what John Kerry has been saying all along and what everyone in Nevada knows -- that the Bush administration has turned its back on sound science in its rush to build the Yucca Mountain repository."

About the same time, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham issued a statement from Washington furthering the Yucca Mountain lie.

"Our scientific basis for the Yucca Mountain Project is sound," Abraham said. "The project will protect the public health and safety."

The contrasting words illustrated once more the clear choice Nevada voters have in the race for president this November.

We can vote for the candidate who is working to put the deadliest substance known to man in our backyard. Or we can vote for the candidate who is vowing to kill the project.