Sun editorial:

Political cover for McCain

Hoping to win Nevada, presidential candidate pitches new idea for nuclear waste

Thursday, May 29, 2008 | 2:07 a.m.

Campaigning in Keene, N.H., in December, Sen. John McCain was asked how he proposed to dispose of high-level nuclear waste. The question came after he said he would increase the use of nuclear power as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

McCain replied to the question with his stock response. “My preference is that we store it,” he told the local newspaper. “I always thought that Yucca Mountain was the right place to do it.”

Actually, this oft-repeated response of his to questions about nuclear waste is an understatement. McCain, R-Ariz., has been one of the most vocal champions of Yucca Mountain in Congress.

So it was a momentary surprise Tuesday when McCain, delivering a speech on nuclear security at the University of Denver, departed from his standard line on the Nevada mountain, located just 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

“I would seek to establish an international repository for spent nuclear fuel that could collect and safely store materials overseas that might otherwise be reprocessed to acquire bomb-grade materials,” McCain said. “It is even possible that such an international center could make it unnecessary to open the proposed spent nuclear fuel storage facility at Yucca Mountain.”

This sudden, out-of-nowhere change in his stock comment on deadly nuclear waste was only momentary in its surprise value because its obvious political angle came swiftly into view.

Since at least 2000, when a victory in “purple” Nevada would have meant Al Gore’s winning the presidency, presidential candidates have seen this state as critical. And guess who campaigned in Reno the day after his Denver speech?

McCain’s new “international” view on nuclear waste is a thinly disguised ploy. He can now try to defuse Yucca Mountain as an issue when Nevadans, who have been fighting the project for 25 years, ask him about it.

But Nevadans know better. The idea of transporting toxic nuclear waste across the country to porous Yucca Mountain is preposterous. Transporting it over land and sea is even more so.

Discussion: 4 comments so far…

By vegas1201

5/29/08 at 5:12 p.m.

Suggest removal

Lets see, McCain comes around to your way of thinking and it's a ploy, If he didn't he would be in the pocket of the nuclear industy. Be honest, He could not say anything you would like... Yep, Nevadans get it. the sun is dishonest enough to say anthing to further their love affair with Obama....
By clearlight

5/29/08 at 5:56 p.m.

Suggest removal

It's great to see both Vegas1201 and McCain still able to totter away from their goofy Yucca Mountain preoccupations...

...but it's sad to see both Vegas1201 and McCain declining into delusion (shipment overseas).

Aricept might help.
By pfpeterson

5/30/08 at 8:33 p.m.

Suggest removal

McCain supports developing the technologies needed to reprocess and transmute nuclear wastes. This greatly reduces the quantity, and longevity, of the residual nuclear wastes. These still need a repository (like Yucca Mountain), but the amounts are reduced so much that it could become logical to send them to an international repository too. The most important point in McCain's speech, which is being ignored to focus narrowly on the Yucca Mountain part, was to support an international repository for wastes from countries with small nuclear programs where we do not want them starting up enrichment and reprocessing. This is a really good idea, and of course this editorial ignores the issue of whether expanding use of nuclear energy might cause proliferation of nuclear weapons, and if so the fact that an international repository could greatly reduce these risks.
By redleaf2k

5/31/08 at 12:11 a.m.

Suggest removal

I think we all know that McCain is going to lose. It's not his fault anyone that is a Republican this year is going to lose.

Obama knows it, Hillary knows it and McCain certainly knows he's a sacrificial lamb; or maybe at his age he's to old to realize his own party is throwing him under the bus. Why else would he get the nomination? You're telling me among all the govs, reps and senators that are Republicans he is the best the party had to offer or are they just saving their "good nominee" for a year when they think the party can win the white house? We all know they are saving the "good one". McCain is Dole all over again, nice enough but no chance of winning.

Somebody has to take the fall in a down year for their party I guess.

Why is Hillary fighting so hard,... this is why, she knows like all of those of you writers and readers who are pretending the race is close even though you know it's not,... whoever is the democratic nominee will win the white house.

That's the cold hard reality. I guess if you say it out loud there would not be a reason to write or read any more articles on the election now would there?