Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Berkley to Sanford: Stop trying to ‘screw Nevada’

South Carolina governor sues to stop Obama shutdown of Yucca Mountain

Yucca Mountain

U.S. Department of Energy

Yucca Mountain is located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Click to enlarge photo

Shelley Berkley

Yucca Mountain

The U.S. Energy Department plans to store spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, an extinct volcano about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Launch slideshow »

Sun coverage

WASHINGTON — Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley said South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is “trying to screw Nevada” by suing to reverse the Obama administration’s efforts to kill Yucca Mountain.

“When he’s not hiking the Appalachian Trail, if he’s so enamored with nuclear waste, I invite him to take all the nuclear waste he wants to South Carolina,” Berkley said.

“I know who the governor of South Carolina is in bed with this time, it’s the nuclear industry,” Berkley said. “There will be no nuke waste stored in Yucca Mountain. Period.”

The South Carolina attorney general’s office on Friday filed papers to intervene in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's decision and also sued the Obama administration in the 4th District Court of Appeals to halt efforts to kill Yucca Mountain.

Sanford had pledged earlier this month to take legal action to stop the what he called “Chicago-style political patronage” to help Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s re-election this fall.

Obama, like the other Democratic candidates campaigning for president in 2008, pledged to end Yucca Mountain, if elected.

“President Obama is keeping his word to the people of Nevada, Senator Reid, and others across the country who don’t want waste traveling through their backyards on its way to Nevada,” said Reid spokesman Jon Summers.

Sanford, who admitted last year to an extramarital affair, had told associates last year he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when in fact he had gone to Argentina to see his mistress.

Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons, along with his friend Kathy Karrasch, was photographed with Sanford at the National Governors’ Association event last weekend in Washington, and had broached the nuclear waste issue with the South Carolinian.

But Gibbons was unable to convince Sanford to change course.

“The two remain at polar opposites on the Yucca issue,” Gibbons spokesman Dan Burns said.

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