Editorial: A ‘yes man’ for Bush

Thursday, May 12, 2005 | 9:02 a.m.

On Tuesday Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman sat down with members of Nevada's congressional delegation to talk about the recent revelations that scientific work on the Yucca Mountain project had been falsified. When it was disclosed in March that e-mails existed that readily described doctoring quality assurance records on the Yucca Mountain project, the Nevada officials called on Bodman to shut down the program while the matter was being investigated. But Bodman refused to do so then and, during his meeting with the delegation on Tuesday, reiterated that stand.

While Bodman's full-speed ahead approach is wrong, it's not altogether surprising given the Bush administration's love affair with the nuclear power industry. It is particularly ominous that Bodman told members of the congressional delegation that he wouldn't turn over some Yucca Mountain project documents that Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., has requested, documents that very well could be the undoing of this controversial program.

Porter, chairman of a House subcommittee that is investigating the e-mails, is considering the possibility of issuing a congressional subpoena to obtain the records if he can't gain the cooperation of the Energy Department. "Up until this moment with the secretary, I was under the assumption that when we ask for documents and they asked for additional time, that it was in good faith," Porter said after the delegation's meeting. "It is obvious to me today that he does not have the intention of releasing documents to the committee."

Indeed, Porter has been more than reasonable so far in his dealings with the Energy Department. We hope it's clear to Bodman now that Porter will move forward aggressively if the Energy Department doesn't quickly provide the congressman with the documents. We are not talking about some minor indiscretions involving a public works project; falsifying scientific work on what is supposed to be the safe burial of 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste -- man's deadliest substance -- is scandalous. The work fabricated -- dealing with how fast water can travel through the mountain and corrode waste canisters, enabling the waste to escape into the environment -- goes to the very heart of whether Yucca Mountain would be safe as a repository. As such, the falsified records should be taken seriously by the Bush administration.

When the president nominated Bodman for the post in December, we wrote then that while we were not so naive as to think that the president would name an energy secretary who would suddenly reverse course on Yucca Mountain, we hoped that he would look at the project through a fresh set of eyes. Our concern was that Bodman would be just another "yes man" in a Cabinet already loaded with them, that he might not provide the president with straight talk on Yucca Mountain that was based on science. So far, with respect to Yucca Mountain and his first real test as energy secretary, Bodman is shaping up as nothing more than a "yes man."