House panel chief blasts Nevada over Yucca battle

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, March 25, 2004 | 11:16 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada needs to stop complaining about Yucca Mountain and accept that the Energy Department's plan to move nuclear waste there is required by law, the head of the House panel that funds the project said Wednesday.

Responding to a phone call the Sun placed to his office Tuesday asking about his interest in the project, Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, told a House energy and water development subcommittee hearing, "Yucca Mountain is the law of the land."

"I think the citizens of Nevada have to look at the future, what's good for the next generation," said Hobson, chairman of the subcommittee, which crafts the Yucca budget in the House each year. "I do have a problem with them being negative and just saying 'not in my back yard.'

"We can fight the law but it is still the law," Hobson said.

Emphasizing that he does not want to create additional environmental problems for the state down the road, Hobson said, "we are not out to hurt Las Vegas."

Nevada's House members were not present at the hearing but said Hobson's comments were disturbing.

"It's a serious problem," Rep. Shelley Berkley said of Hobson's position in the Yucca budget. "We have someone who is anti-Nevada and obviously a shill for the nuclear industry controlling the dollars that go into Yucca Mountain.

"If 100 years from now those canisters leak, his (Hobson's) apology is not going to mean one thing to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and he won't be around to do the apology."

But the comments reflect an attitude that the Nevada delegation has to fight, she said.

"It's obvious we have to overcome the naivete of members of Congress that do not fully appreciate the seriousness of this issue, not only for the people of the state of Nevada, but of every American citizen who is going to be exposed to the dangers of nuclear waste if we start transporting this garbage across 43 states to come to the state of Nevada," she said.

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said Hobson's criticism won't stop the state's efforts to halt the Yucca Mountain project.

"We do hear that we are just complaining about, 'not in my back yard,' but so be it. We can't stop fighting it (Yucca Mountain)," he said.

Porter said the terrorism threat and transportation issues are not just a Nevada problem. It will also affect other states the material moves through. With recent attacks on trains in Madrid, that threat is going to be a growing concern for transportation of the waste across the country, not just in Nevada, he said.

"It will be moving past other schools, other churches, other shopping centers, other homes, not just in Nevada," he said.

Porter and Berkley, D-Nev., conducted a hearing in Las Vegas March 5 examining the planning of transportation routes for the nuclear waste.

Amy Spanbauer, spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said, "It is not a 'not in my backyard issue' just for Nevada, but for all of the country. Forty-nine states did not want nuclear waste in their back yard. It was a political situation that created this project."