Reid remark’s accuracy up for debate

Did Sen. Harry Reid commit a debate gaffe in regard to Yucca Mountain?

During Thursday's debate with Sharron Angle, moderator Mitch Fox asked Reid about the long-controversial nuclear waste project that he has shut down in alliance with the Obama administration.

"Did we miss a golden opportunity to create jobs and receive benefits from the federal government during a time when we really needed it?" Fox asked.

"Mitch, we tried for 28 years to get something from the federal government. They gave us nothing," Reid replied. "Yucca Mountain is not good for the country and it is really bad for Nevada."

Is it accurate that Nevada over the course of three decades sought to benefit from Yucca Mountain?

The state has flatly said it would never negotiate when it came to accepting high-level nuclear waste. That stance started with Gov. Richard Bryan in 1988, according to Bruce Breslow, the director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects.

Convinced that a nuclear waste burial ground at Yucca Mountain inevitably would be found unsafe and would threaten the state's environment and economy, Bryan declined to enter into talks with the Department of Energy to receive "impact mitigation assistance" for accepting the repository.

The deal on the table, offered through a 1987 congressional update to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, was for Nevada to receive $10 million a year until the first waste shipment would arrive, and $20 million a year after that.

Bryan said accepting the money would negate the state's right to conduct oversight and protect its interests.

"It would be impossible to agree to such 'acceptance' at this time, when the geologic suitability of Yucca Mountain for safe waste isolation is very much in doubt," Bryan said in a May 20, 1988, rejection letter. "The state's duty to carry out independent oversight, monitoring and review of the DOE's repository program would clearly be compromised by any such premature agreement for waste acceptance."

Besides, Bryan wrote, the state would be accepting "an arbitrarily established fixed amount of money" without knowing whether it would cover the repository's impact.

Nevada has fought multiple lawsuits against the government over Yucca Mountain and has continued to hold the position that it is not interested in accepting high-level nuclear waste at any price, Breslow said.

Asked whether Reid misspoke during the debate, campaign spokesman Jon Summers acknowledged Nevada had not sought benefits for 28 years to accept the repository. But, he maintained, the government could have tried to make another offer, and it never did.

"Granted it would have been hard for them to come up with something to counter the risks," Summers said. "Throughout the entire Yucca Mountain fight, it was clear the federal government was looking to turn Nevada into the nation's nuclear dumping ground against the state's wishes, and Senator Reid has stopped that from happening."

---- Steve Tetreault

It appears a dispute with Clark County firefighters cost Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid an endorsement.

The Professional Firefighters of Nevada published endorsements for the upcoming general election but declined to pick a candidate in the race for governor, the most significant state race on the ballot.

The union organization backed Democrats for every other statewide constitutional office. But there is bad blood between Reid and Clark County firefighters over budget cuts that eliminated a hazmat and heavy rescue team. Reid, a Democrat and chairman of the Clark County Commission, supported the cuts to balance the county's budget.

In July members of the International Association of Firefighters Local 1908, which is affiliated with the Professional Firefighters of Nevada, walked door to door in Reid's district to protest those cuts, which they say will jeopardize safety. Fliers they left on doors referred to "Rory Reid's Threat" and made headlines in large part because of speculation it could affect Reid's gubernatorial campaign against Republican Brian Sandoval.

Reid stands by the cuts.

---- Benjamin Spillman

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will be in Reno today to help Tea Party backers kick off a "Tea Party Express IV: Liberty At The Ballot Box" multistate bus tour and get-out-the-vote effort that wraps up in New Hampshire on Nov. 1.

The GOP's 2008 vice presidential candidate is to speak at a 10 a.m. rally at front of the Washoe County Republican Party headquarters, said Levi Russell, communications director for the Tea Party Express. The bus tour continues -- without Palin, who may rejoin at some future date -- to Elko for a 5:30 p.m. stop. On Tuesday, the tour hits Ely for a noon rally and then rolls on to Las Vegas, where Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio headlines a 6 p.m. rally at Stoney's Rockin' Country, 9151 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

When Arpaio spoke at the same venue in May he drew a crowd of about 200 protesters who disagree with his enthusiastic enforcement of Arizona's controversial law making it illegal to be an undocumented immigrant, which they called racial profiling. About a dozen Las Vegas police officers had to separate the Arizona lawman from the crowd.

In an official Maricopa County Sheriff's Office news release last week, Media Relations Director Lisa Allen described the event as "a near riot" that forced local police to "stand guard around the sheriff to protect him from physical harm."

Arpaio himself seemed to be relishing a rematch, saying, "So long as the Vegas police are on standby to protect the crowds, I figure I can handle myself pretty well.''

The Arizona sheriff, who often speaks at Tea Party events around the nation, last month endorsed Republican Sharron Angle in her bid to unseat Democrat Sen. Harry Reid in the Nov. 2 election.

It'll be a busy week in Nevada politics.

On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden will join Reid for an 8 a.m. rally at the University of Nevada, Reno's Virginia Street Gym, while President Barack Obama will be in Las Vegas on Thursday for a $30,000-a-head private fundraiser and on Friday for a town hall meeting at Green Valley High School followed by a CityCenter tour to highlight Reid's help in keeping the downtown revitalization project going, and a rally for Reid at Orr Middle School.

-- James G. Wright

Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or202-783-1760. Contact Ben Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 477-3861. Contact James G. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com or 383-0355.