Thursday, July 08, 2004
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STEVE SEBELIUS: More politics on Yucca

If I rounded up a bunch of lovable Nevada Democrats and told them that a vice presidential candidate was coming to town who'd voted repeatedly to put a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, they'd be reaching for the protest signs before I even finished speaking.

Of course I was talking about Vice President Dick Cheney, whose votes as a member of the House of Representatives are a matter of public record, and whose still-secret energy task force was clearly guided by donors from Big Energy. Right?

Not this time: I was really talking about U.S. Sen. John Edwards, John Kerry's newly picked running mate. Edwards voted for (and against) temporary storage of nuclear waste in Nevada back in 2000, and in 2002 voted to override Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the Yucca dump.

So we'll see the protest signs, right? The ever-popular Yucca Man will make an appearance at the next sign of Edwards in town? At the very least, a stern news release from party headquarters?

Not exactly.

Instead, Nevada Democrats were making signs to welcome Edwards to the Silver State, coaxing assurances that he's really not so pro-dump after all from the candidate and pointing out how George W. Bush is far, far worse.

To their credit, Nevada's Democrats didn't employ the lamest, most pathetic line when it comes to Yucca. Nobody said they've "agreed to disagree" with Edwards on the issue in the name of party unity. That's what routinely spills from the lips of Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Brian Sandoval, who are in the unique legal position of both suing Bush's administration over Yucca while co-chairing his re-election campaign.

Edwards apparently told U.S. Sen. Harry Reid that he would defer to ticket-leader Kerry's staunch opposition to Yucca Mountain. Unlike Edwards, Kerry's voting record is pure. Then again, Kerry has vowed to stop the Yucca Mountain dump entirely, an impossible task without at least an act of Congress.

When former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, another one-time Yucca supporter, came to town, he was so frightened of the issue he said he'd "seen the light" and changed his position. Whether anybody was convinced by the latter-day flip-flop became irrelevant when he went all Tarzan after coming in third in the Iowa caucuses.

Nobody's saying Democrats have to disown Edwards and, by extension, Kerry because of Edward's history of supporting a nuclear waste dump. But nobody is saying the party shouldn't have to take yoga classes to endure the intellectual contortions necessary to overlook the Yucca votes, either. (Actually, I take that back; I just said it.)

But if the party's membership was simply to admit that yes, Edwards did vote for Yucca, but he's right on all the other issues we care about -- including education, national security, the economy and health care -- things would be so much better.

It would cost them at least some of the moral thunder they currently deploy whenever a pro-dump Republican swings into town to raise money. It's hard to bash House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for being a Yucca supporter when you've got one running for vice president.

But that points up something unique about this issue: To Nevada, it's a litmus test. To the rest of the country, it's a funny name. Otherwise, why would Kerry have risked alienating vote-rich Nevada (not) by picking a guy who was wrong on The Big Issue?

In other states, Yucca Mountain is seen as a solution to a problem. Nuclear waste piles up in North Carolina, and Edwards wants to get rid of it so he can tell his constituents he's done something. (It's a big lie, of course. Waste will continue to pile up so long as plants are operating, and many more constituents will be exposed to danger while the waste is transported and buried in the Nevada desert.)

Sure, some Republicans may have baser motives, such as keeping the nuclear power industry alive and kicking. They do it with insurance subsidies and by promising to take out the (radioactive) garbage. But not all Democrats can say they have clean hands when it comes to propping up Big Energy, either.

No matter how many fine distinctions we make, however, it's intellectually dishonest to attack Republicans for supporting Yucca Mountain and give Democrats a pass when they do the same thing.

We can, though, single out Bush for special Yucca bashing, because he promised to wait until sound science was finished before deciding to designate Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear dump or not. And then, before "sound science" was finished, Bush acted anyway. That's a broken promise, and it's something for which the Bush campaign will have to answer.

Perhaps the saddest thing is that, for all the bluster, all the pandering, all the promises and campaigns, it's very likely that no matter who wins the White House in November, Nevada will still eventually become home to the nation's nuclear waste.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at Ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.