Loux’s credibility attacked by pro-Yucca Idaho senator

Friday, Aug. 4, 2006 | 7:22 a.m.

WASHINGTON - Sparks typically fly at hearings on Yucca Mountain. Thursday's looked like a welding shop.

Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, a staunch supporter of plans to store nuclear waste at Yucca, let loose an attack on Bob Loux, Nevada's point man in opposing the project.

"I don't know that you have credibility before this committee," the senator said after hearing from Loux and others on a panel of experts appearing before the Senate Energy Committee. "Your purpose is to kill Yucca Mountain. Period. In that status, can you have any objectivity at all? I doubt it."

Loux has worked more than two decades on Yucca, testifying at more than two dozen Congressional hearings. As executive director of the Nevada Agency on Nuclear Projects, he has been appointed by a succession of governors, including most recently Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican.

Guinn's office stood by Loux. Nevada's advocacy on Capitol Hill is no different than that coming from members of the panel who supported Yucca.

"Nevada has made it clear that we do not want the nation's nuclear waste dumped in our back yard," said the governor's spokesman, Steve George. Loux, he said, "has been a longtime resource, and this governor and other governors depend on him very much."

Loux was not fazed by Craig. "I would compare my credibility to his any day of the week."