Editorial: One man can make a difference

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 | 9:24 a.m.

On Sunday Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry made a campaign stop in Las Vegas, where he renewed his opposition to a nuclear waste dump in Nevada. But Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., dismissed Kerry's remarks, saying, "To say he's going to stop Yucca Mountain, it's a nice thing in the campaign, but certainly a false promise."

Ensign certainly knows a thing or two about false promises. It was George W. Bush who told Nevadans, when he was campaigning for president in 2000, that he wouldn't support Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste dump unless it had been deemed scientifically safe. At the time, Bush's pledge elicited skepticism since the nuclear power industry, which backs Yucca Mountain, was supporting his candidacy. Nevertheless, Bush's views on Yucca Mountain were defended by the state's top Republican leaders. And what did Nevada get in return for delivering its electoral votes -- and the election -- to Bush based on his promise? A year after he was sworn into office, Bush enlisted Congress' support for his plan to send 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste to Nevada. Thanks, Mr. President.

Kerry, in contrast to Bush, has been a friend of Nevada. In 2000 Kerry voted to sustain President Clinton's veto of legislation that would have made it easier to send nuclear waste to Nevada, and in 2002 he voted against Bush's plan to send nuclear waste to Nevada. And Kerry has promised, if elected, to use his presidential power to block Yucca Mountain, by trying to halt the flow of federal money to the project or by directing regulatory agencies to acknowledge scientific studies that show the project might be unsafe. Undoubtedly, derailing Yucca Mountain will be incredibly difficult given the strong support for the project in Congress, driven almost entirely by Republicans, most if not all of them also beholden to the nuclear power industry. Still, Nevadans should lend their support to Kerry, who has stood with our small state before and will do so again on the single most important federal issue affecting Nevada. Yucca Mountain has proven that character counts when electing! a president.