Editorial: DOE’s recklessness

Tuesday, March 9, 2004 | 9:10 a.m.

On Friday the railroads subcommittee of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure met in Las Vegas for a hearing into the Energy Department's plans to ship nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. Nevada Reps. Shelley Berkley and Jon Porter, who is vice chairman of the railroads subcommittee, said that they were heartened that members of the subcommittee were concerned after they had learned more about the dangers posed by shipping man's deadliest waste.

Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., voted for the Yucca Mountain project in 2002, but now says she is "having second and third thoughts" regarding her vote. "I made a mistake," she said. "I certainly am going to push that we do something immediately." We've believed all along that the Yucca Mountain project's fate ultimately could hinge on the opposition that cross-country shipment of 77,000 tons of nuclear waste could engender from people who live along the possible routes. It's why the Energy Department for so long was so elusive about identifying routes or methods of transportation and, even today, only reveals its preferences, not an iron-clad list. But the more the public knows, the more we're certain the Energy Department's nuclear-waste plans will unravel.

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