Friday, February 06, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Yucca opponents sway lawmaker from Minnesota

Meetings with Nevada leaders prompt call for limits on nuclear waste transportation

Minnesota state Rep. Frank Hornstein jumped at the chance to visit Yucca Mountain when the Department of Energy invited him and other members of his state's energy task force.

But when the official trip didn't include a chance to talk with Nevada politicians about their opposition to the plan, Hornstein called around to get the other side of the story.

So compelling was his talk with Gov. Kenny Guinn, state lawmakers and citizen activist Peggy Maze Johnson that Hornstein has decided to sponsor legislation in Minnesota that would restrict transportation of nuclear waste through densely populated areas like the south end of Minneapolis, which he represents.

"It makes Yucca Mountain an immediate issue for us," Hornstein, a Democrat, said by telephone from St. Paul, Minn.

Local Democrats and Johnson pledged Thursday to try to make the United States aware, one state lawmaker at a time.

As a Union Pacific freight train chugged and then ground to a halt behind them, Nevada lawmakers again warned of the transportation risks associated with storing 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"Prior to the last year or so, this has been Nevada's problem," said Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, bracing against a strong wind across the rail line downtown. "We're finding that many, many more of them are coming to the side of Nevada."

Perkins has been meeting with other lawmakers in his role as speaker and through his association with national associations of state legislators.

He said Nevada is shifting its fight to individual states through which the waste is projected to travel if the planned national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain is licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, said that while she considered it important to make residents of other states aware of the transportation issue, she also said it was important for voters to consider the political issue.

She issued a call to action to Nevada Republicans, saying they can't oppose Yucca Mountain and support the re-election of President Bush. The president recommended Yucca Mountain for the repository, despite unresolved scientific questions about the safety of the site. In 2000, as a presidential candidate, he told Nevada voters he would base his decision on "sound science."

Titus pointed to Republican Attorney General Brian Sandoval, who presented some of Nevada's arguments in court, but who is co-chair of the Bush campaign in Nevada.

"We can no longer afford for it to be a half-baked effort," Titus said. "You can't take money from Republican leadership in Washington, can't support the president and go wink-wink to the nuclear power industry."

Chris Carr, executive director of the Nevada Republican Party, called the message "the same rhetoric."

"They're constantly bringing up Yucca," Carr said. "They're using the same anger and pessimism against our president and our party."