Bush/Dean: Yucca Mountain as a campaign touchstone

In fact, one can make a perfectly respectable case for the view that when a public servant's constituency changes, so should some of his positions."

When George Bush in February 2002 named Nevada as his choice for a dump site for high level nuclear wastes, I was astonished that not a single newspaper in the state revived the New York Daily News's classic headline and adapted it to Nevada - "BUSH TO NEVADA: DROP DEAD." Democrats in the presidential election this year may not be so kind.

Since Bush chose Yucca Mountain for the dump, Republicans in the state have preferred to change the subject whenever Yucca comes up. Howard Dean's now stalled surge led them to hope that Dean's nomination would neutralize the issue with both major party candidates supporting the dump. That hope has become a little unsteady of late. Dean says the position he took as his state's spokesperson (Dean's Vermont has a 125-acre nuclear power plant in Windham County) is not the position he takes as candidate for president of the entire country. In an online chat with readers of New Hampshire's Concord Monitor, Dean was asked about the wisdom of building more nuclear power plants. He responded, "We can not build any new nuclear power plants until we have a satisfactory way of disposing of the waste. At present, significant questions have been raised about the safety of Yucca Mountain, the disposal site in Nevada. Unless those safety questions are resolved Yucca cannot be opened and new plants must not be built."

In a visit to Las Vegas, Dean phrased it less elegantly: "I wanted to get that stuff out of my state ... Now that I'm running for president I've seen the light."

There is, to be sure, something mildly offensive about Dean's explanation. "I wanted to get that stuff out of MY state" is the flip side of "I wanted to get that stuff into YOUR state," which is representative of the parochialism that has made so many failed public policies in the name of nimbyism. And certainly there are candidates who, from Nevada's viewpoint, have better records on Yucca. Richard Gephardt, in particular, has not only voted against Yucca but has spoken at rallies in his home state of Missouri and urged residents there to get involved in the anti-Yucca fight. Unfortunately for Nevada Democrats, the Iowa caucuses eliminated Gephardt.

http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2004/01/21/opinion/myers.html

Yucca mountain is a sacred mountain, and no one should advocate putting the stuff there. It's despicable.

There are a lot of problems with Yucca Mountain as a permanent storage site for high-level nuclear waste, but I hadn't heard this argument before.

It surprises me, because Yucca Mountain is a very non-descript place, appearance-wise. Odd that it would have been chosen as a sacred place.

:shrug:


--Peter

Look here:

http://www.sacredland.org/yucca_mountain.html

http://www.indigogirls.com/corresp/2002/2002-04-ae.html

Just curious, of course.

Among the remaining candidates, Wesley Clark has taken the most unequivocal anti-dump position, promising to "use the full force of the presidency to kill this dangerous project..."

"John Kerry of Massachusetts, for instance, voted against the Yucca dump although they have the 1,600-acre Pilgrim reactor in historic Plymouth"

has a record in addition to a position

So what then? Every state would be responsible for the cost of construction and maintanence of their own nuclear waste storage facility? Sounds like it would also be an unecessary security risk.

ending the use of nuclear energy? How about making the nuclear energy corporations responsible for their own mess, instead of dumping it on individual states or singling out the people of Nevada?

Which candidate(s) are calling for that?

Kucinich

Hell, he spread enough of that stuff around Kosovo to light up Mars.

So, hey , that's a solution! Put it in our ammo!

Oh, wait , then we'd need another hot war to get rid of it.

* oh, I get it :scared:

A stunning 75 percent of Nevadans oppose Yucca dumpsite.

Howard Dean made his position on Yucca Mountain public on October 28:

"In 1996 I wrote a letter to my senator saying you ought to vote for Yucca Mountain because we've got a nuclear power plant, and I want to get the stuff out of my state.

"Now that we're running for president, now I have seen the light," Dean told about 250 supporters at a $100-per-person reception at a Las Vegas home Tuesday.

"I'm not going to promise you I'm going to be against Yucca Mountain, but if I become president ... we're going to stop construction and we're going to have a complete safety review," Dean said. "I worry deeply about corrosive nuclear waste rotting through the casks and having stuff buried all that far underground so we're going to revisit all this stuff."
<...>
"I can't take a position against Yucca Mountain because we've got to review the entire science of this. ... I'm not going to say Yucca Mountain is out, and I'm just not going to say it is in, either."

On January 14 this year, Wes Clark made his unambiguous statement on the issue, weighing in on the judicial appeal of the state of Nevada against the unfair process with which the $58bn Yucca Mountain site is rammed down the throat of Nevadans:
"I am against the nuke dump at Yucca Mountain, period. I will use the full force of the presidency to kill this dangerous project, which would put the lives and health of Nevadans at risk for generations. Unlike President Bush and other politicians, that is the only position I've ever taken and it will remain my position as president."

Let's not get confounded by the game the Bush administration is trying to pull off: a project that raises serious concern over the stability and safety of the site cannot and should not be unilaterally imposed - certainly not when all other states wash their hands on alternatives, and prefer to dump their dangerous waste on a less populous state.

Enough is enough - plenty of territory here in Nevada is contaminated already by nuke tests in earlier decades. We're not the nation's nuclear toilet.

Instead of playing clever word games, let's tackle this together.

:kick:

has Dean made his position clear?

What about the other candidates? Kerry? Edwards?

Has Dean changed / clarified his position after Oct 28?

Anyone?

Edwards' position will disappoint.

That being the case, NV looks better even for Clark.

Lots of work here ahead... Gotta nail this down real good.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

YUCCA MOUNTAIN
Now, you¹re going to ask me about Yucca Mountain so I¹m going to answer it. In 1996, I wrote a letter to my senators saying they oughta vote for Yucca Mountain because we got a nuclear power plant and I wanted to get the stuff out of my state. Having run for president, I have seen the light. I¹m not going to promise you I¹m going to be against Yucca Mountain, but if I become president, here¹s what I¹m going to do. We¹re going to have a complete safety review. We¹re going to stop construction and have a complete safety review. I am not persuaded by the transportation argument, although I am persuaded by the safety argument. I worry deeply about corrosive nuclear waste rotting through casks and having the stuff buried all that far underground. So we are going to revisit this stuff, and have some scientists who are not paid in the nuclear power industry and try and figure out what exactly we are going to do.

Yucca Mountain is on a fault line - a big one. Think of that stuff pouring into Las Vegas while your family is vacationing. Think of the transportation risks. Why move it at all? Where is the waste now? It's sitting where it was created.