Columnist Jeff German: Feds show Nevada no quarter

Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2005 | 10:55 a.m.

Nevada isn't being viewed with much kindness in the nation's capital these days.

We are being asked to store the nation's deadly nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and send back $700 million from land sales to bail out the deficit-ridden national treasury.

There is no clearer example of our poor standing in Washington than the ludicrous decision-making process over the look of our state quarter, which goes into circulation next year.

Every state gets its own quarter as part of a special 10-year U.S. Treasury Department program approved by Congress in 1999.

Each federally minted coin is supposed to capture the essence of the state. But in Nevada's case, the Treasury Department made sure that wouldn't happen early in the design process when it banned any references to gambling.

So Nevada officials came up with five historical and wilderness concepts -- all hardly reflecting our way of life today -- for the U.S. Mint's artists to sketch.

One design drawn up in Washington features an old-time miner, another some wild horses and a third a patch of lazy sagebrush.

Ultimately, Nevada will make the final choice, however boring and unrealistic it will be.

The design that won over two influential Washington panels advising the Treasury Department says all we need to know about how we are perceived inside the Beltway.

It shows an oversized bighorn sheep hovering over a small mountain range with the state motto,"All for Our Country," off to the side.

The mountain range is supposed to be the majestic Sierra Nevadas up north, but cynics swear it looks more like the diminutive Yucca Mountain, 90 miles from Las Vegas, where the Bush administration wants to bury the high-level nuclear waste.

Whoever created this sketch for us in Washington must have had a relative working for the U.S. Energy Department.

The only thing missing is an illustration of a cask filled with radioactive waste.

One look at the design and you can't help but notice the sorry symbolism.

This is the Nevada the federal government wants us to be -- the one that will blindly accept its destiny (for our country, of course) as the dumping ground for the deadliest substance known to man.

But the good news is that the design has no chance of actually landing on the back of Nevada's quarter when the selection process mercifully comes to an end.

Kathy Besser, chief of staff to Nevada Treasurer Brian Krolicki, says state officials saw the obvious flaws in the bighorn rendering and made it clear they wanted some changes.

The new design, which the two advisory panels apparently didn't see, features a much smaller bighorn and enhances the mountains to make them look like the Sierra Nevadas. It also replaces the words "All for our Country" with "Silver State."

But this brings little relief to a skewed selection process that has become a complete waste of time and money.

Maybe we should tell Washington we've had enough of this nonsense and emblazon the quarter with the Revolutionary War slogan, "Don't Tread on Me."

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