Editorial: Standing strong against Yucca

Thursday, Dec. 21, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

The new Democratic majority in Congress, which includes Senate Majority Leader -elect Harry Reid of Nevada, offers the best chance in two decades to bring about the beginning of the end of Yucca Mountain. And as before, Nevada's congressional delegation stands in bipartisan readiness to lead the way for this action.

The delegation, including incoming Republican Rep. Dean Heller, met Tuesday at the George Federal Building in downtown Las Vegas. The members discussed strategy for turning Congress against the project, which would see the nation's high-level nuclear waste dangerously transported across the country for unsafe burial at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Among the delegation's strategies is to meet with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to propose alternative solutions for the waste. The NRC is the agency that will decide whether to license the rightfully stalled Yucca repository if the Energy Department ever submits an application.

Other encouraging strategies include reiterating to every member of Congress the dangers associated with Yucca, and to widen the scope of the state's lawsuit against the project.

It was not encouraging, however, to hear President Bush's support of nuclear power during a Wednesday press conference. The president touted "the technologies that will eventually come to fore that will enable us to reduce the wastes, the toxicity of the waste and the amount of the waste."

Scientists independent of the Bush administration, however, are skeptical that such technologies can ever be developed. In standing strong against Yucca Mountain, our delegation should also lead congressional opposition to more nuclear power plants. They would produce even more waste for burial - if not in Nevada, then someplace where it would be just as dangerous.