Columnist Jeff German: Gibbons has late awakening

Friday, May 13, 2005 | 11:09 a.m.

Is it freezing down below?

No one thought this was possible, but Nevada Rep. Jim Gibbons, the man who wants to be our next governor, has finally figured out that the Bush administration is determined to stick us with Yucca Mountain even if it has to doctor the science.

Gibbons, a Republican in his fifth term, got a chilling dose of reality after this week's confrontation over Yucca Mountain between Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and Nevada's congressional delegation.

Bodman told the bipartisan delegation that Yucca Mountain isn't dead in the eyes of the Energy Department, which is moving ahead full force with the licensing process in the face of damning allegations that scientific research was rigged.

This didn't come as a surprise to most veteran Yucca Mountain opponents, who know the Energy Department has invested too much in the wounded nuclear waste project to let it expire without a fight.

But according to Gibbons -- who, up to this point, has been a patsy for the Bush administration on this subject -- what Bodman said was astonishing.

"It was something of an eye-opening experience to realize they have an obvious mandate to license Yucca Mountain despite what the science may say or what they don't know," Gibbons told the Las Vegas Review-Journal after the tension-filled meeting in Washington.

Are you kidding me?

Where has Gibbons been during his eight years on Capitol Hill?

"He's been in his own world," says Peggy Maze Johnson, the executive director of Citizens Alert, an anti-Yucca Mountain watchdog group. "I don't think he has understood what's been going on."

Johnson says Gibbons certainly hasn't been listening to his constituents.

"We've been talking about bad science forever," she says. "He just hasn't been paying attention."

This opinion is shared by Democrats within Nevada's congressional delegation.

"For someone who has turned a blind eye for years to the shortcomings of his own party on this issue, I find it ironic that he's finally struck with this idea that, wow, they're not willing to do anything for us," one Democratic congressional source says.

But now that Gibbons has seen the light -- he said last week that he's ready to "play hardball" -- we can expect him at long last to stand up to the Bush administration.

Hopefully, that means no more Yucca Mountain passes for President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their top advisers when they come to the state.

As late as two months ago, Gibbons shielded Cheney during the vice president's visit to Reno from having to answer media questions about Yucca Mountain.

Gibbons and other top Nevada Republicans pulled this stunt throughout the 2004 campaign to help re-elect Bush and Cheney. The duo ended up winning the state's five electoral votes without ever having to explain how they pushed Yucca Mountain on us amid so many unanswered questions about its safety.

If Gibbons is serious about wanting to play hardball, it means his party pandering over Yucca Mountain will have to come to an end.

Then he can fight like the rest of us.