Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, September 12, 2003
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Las Vegas Sun
September 10, 2003
Nevada gov says Bush backing no problem despite nuclear dump issue
Associated Press
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Gov. Kenny Guinn repeated Wednesday that he has no problem being part of the team that will try to deliver Nevada's four electoral votes to President Bush next year - despite Bush's approval of the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump.
The Republican governor, on KRNV-TV's "Nevada Newsmakers" show in Reno, said he tried to block the high-level waste dump, but could still "very easily" be part of the Bush re-election team in this state.
"I'm looking at the holistic body of an individual and so that's the reason," said Guinn, an honorary co-chairman of the Bush re-election effort in Nevada, along with U.S. Sen. John Ensign and Reps. Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter. State Attorney General Brian Sandoval is chairman of the team.
Nevada went to Bush in 2000, following a campaign promise by Bush to ensure "sound science" prevailed in any decision he made on a nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain.
After his election, Bush approved the Yucca Mountain project, prompting Democrats to criticize him for breaking his promises regarding the project.
Guinn also defended his "irrelevant" description of people who are opposed to higher taxes even if the need for new levies is clear, and said it was taken out of context to suggest he was talking about some anti-tax legislators.
Guinn insisted that inference was wrong, adding, "But, look, I'm not a crybaby. I just live with it."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 11, 2003
Column: Steve Sebelius
'Totality of the issues'
"Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens."
-- Singer Britney Spears, on CNN
Some desk-blotter calendars now call this Patriots Day, in observation of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. We're supposed to leave our differences behind and line up behind our duly elected leaders (or, in this case, President George W. Bush), salute smartly, and gird our loins against the evildoers.
Like Ms. Spears, we're supposed to trust our president. But this being America, a nation built by independent thinkers with a mean streak when it comes to authority, the Spears remark seems kind of ... dangerously stupid. And it does no violence to the memories of those tragically killed two years ago to question authority today.
To that end, I was intrigued to hear Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign manager Ken Mehlman explain why Nevadans shouldn't vote against his boss, based solely upon the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump issue. The president has provided leadership through war, recession and national emergency, Mehlman said. Voters, he added, "look at everything. They look at the totality of the issues."
And, at Mehlman's invitation, it might behoove us going into an election year to review President Bush's performance on the totality of the issues, and in so doing to truly celebrate our freedoms on this Patriots Day.
• President Bush declared he would decide the Yucca Mountain issue on sound science. But after what must have been sleepless minutes spent not reading reports on the problems associated with the dump, Bush signed off on it, prompting U.S. Sen. Harry Reid to accuse the president of lying.
• While the rubble at Ground Zero was still smoking, Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft pushed through the USA Patriot Act, which greatly expanded government power to snoop on citizens and foreigners alike. The loathsome law -- criticized in this space from the very beginning -- has come under so much fire that Ashcroft has taken to the road to defend it, although he declines to take questions from print reporters who may ask about the civil liberties implications.
• From the beginning, Bush favored tax cuts that tend to benefit the most wealthy, claiming that was the best way to help an economy he says was going bad in the waning days of President Clinton's administration. We've got the tax cuts, but we're also headed for more net job losses than any president since Herbert Hoover -- together with deficits mushrooming out of control. It's so much like the 1980s, if Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd were to team up and make a movie about a time-traveling sports car, heads would explode.
• In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush rightly vowed to take the fight to the terrorists and the countries that embraced them. And although 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, and although our own government has found that Saudi Arabia served as a terrorist ATM -- no fees! -- we invaded ... Afghanistan. Later, based upon intelligence that the president knew, or should have known, was highly faulty, Bush justified an invasion of Iraq.
• And despite predictions of weapons of mass destruction factories as plentiful as 7-Elevens in Las Vegas, we've yet to find a single weapon. Or Saddam Hussein. Or Osama bin Laden. (Remember him?)
In the meantime, more U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq since "major combat operations" ended than were killed during the brief shooting war that preceded the filming of the president's 2004 campaign commercial, a taxpayer-financed "Top Gun"-style landing on a U.S. aircraft carrier idling at sea.
What do we tell the families of those brave soldiers? We appreciate their sacrifice? But for what are their sons and daughters put in harms' way? No matter how hard he may try, Bush cannot offer a satisfactory answer.
• Although Bush claims no child will be left behind, he's left behind funding for his "No Child Left Behind Law." He's allowed his vice president, Dick Cheney, to hold secret meetings to form a national energy policy, and defended lawsuits trying to find out who really wrote it (hint: it was the energy industry). Corporations are profiting off the rebuilding in Iraq, as the administration fumbles diplomatically to try to get the United Nations to assist in preventing quagmire. Making war, it turns out, is much easier than building peace. Who knew? And Bush, like his father before him, supports the unconstitutional assault weapons ban, ironically allowing the residents of Iraq more freedom to own fully automatic weapons than the citizens of his own country.
Judge the president on his leadership, campaign manager Mehlman implored. That sounds fair. On this Patriot's Day, the judgment isn't kind to George W. Bush.
Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.
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Las Vegas Mercury
September 11, 2003
Democracy in Peril
By Steve Sebelius
BUSH TO COME TO NEVADA SOMEDAY: The campaign manager for President Bush's re-election effort, Ken Melman, said Monday that the president would come to Nevada "relatively soon," but had no specifics as to when or where. Bush avoided Las Vegas during the 2000 race, although he did make a brief appearance at Lake Tahoe during that campaign. This time, Melman said Bush will come to Nevada during the campaign. Will it be by year's end? "Perhaps," Melman responded.
As far as other issues, Melman says the Yucca Mountain debacle will be less important to voters than Bush's overall leadership in the face of a recession and two wars. "They [voters] look at everything. They look at the totality of the issues," Melman said. "This is a president who has taken on tough challenges."
But Melman said he wasn't aware of the Bush administration stance on key Nevada issues, such as Indian or Internet gambling. He was confident in rebutting Sen. Harry Reid's contention that Bush lied about approving Yucca Mountain, although he was unsure about efforts to unseat Reid.
HARRY'S YUCCA HIJINKS: Speaking of Reid, the senator isn't just going to filibuster right-wing judges; Reid's chief aide now says he won't approve one of President Bush's nominees to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission unless the White House in turn nominates one of Reid's staffers for the panel as well. In a story published Monday in Energy Daily, Reid chief of staff Susan McCue says Reid wants Gregory Jaczko, a key aide to the senator on nuclear issues, on the NRC.
Reid is "intent" on getting Jaczko onto the commission, McCue told Energy Daily, a trade publication, noting that there was one Republican opening and one Democratic opening. (President Bush has nominated retired Navy Vice Adm. John Grossenbacher for the Republican slot.) Reid has received support from Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who wrote a letter to Bush in April on the matter, but the White House has asked for another Democratic nominee, Energy Daily reports.
"McCue said Reid planned to 'slow down, if not stop' hearings on Grossenbacher's nomination if the White House does not reconsider Jaczko," the Energy Daily story says. "McCue said Jaczko was being opposed by the nuclear industry, but officials at the Nuclear Energy Institute said the group has taken no formal position on Jaczko." But the industry's spokesman, Mitch Singer, says Jaczko's work in opposing Yucca Mountain means he "would not be an appropriate choice" for the position because he'd be biased against licensing Yucca.
Which, we think, is precisely the point of his nomination, right?
Steve Sebelius writes a daily e-mail newsletter, the E-Briefing, from which "Democracy in Peril" is excerpted. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at ssebelius@reviewjournal.com. To subscribe to the E-Briefing at a Mercury reader special price of $20 per year, go to www.reviewjournal.com/ebriefing.
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Washington Post
September 11, 2003
Today in Congress
HOUSE
Energy and Commerce -- 10 a.m. Energy and air quality subc. DOE's Yucca Mountain Project. 2123 RHOB.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 12, 2003
Yucca Mountain Project hearing postponed
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- A U.S. House of Representatives hearing on the Yucca Mountain Project was postponed Thursday after lawmakers wrapped up work early this week and many went home.
The House energy and air quality subcommittee did not announce a rescheduled date for the hearing. A spokeswoman said it probably would be held "sooner rather than later" because of interest in the nuclear waste repository program.
House leaders had scheduled no floor votes for Thursday and Friday, leading many lawmakers to make plans to leave Washington at midweek and forcing postponement of a handful of meetings.
The Yucca Mountain hearing was to highlight testimony from Energy Department officials giving a status report of the repository program. The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an executive from DOE contractor Bechtel SAIC, and a nuclear industry representative also were scheduled to speak.
Nevada's three House members also arranged invitations after initially being discouraged to testify, their offices said.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
September 12, 2003
Guinn backs Bush, despite nuclear dump
Associated Press
Gov. Kenny Guinn repeated Wednesday that he has no problem being part of the team that will try to deliver Nevada´s five electoral votes to President Bush next year — despite Bush´s approval of the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump.
The Republican governor, on the News 4 “Nevada Newsmakers’ show in Reno, said he tried to block the high-level waste dump but still “very easily’ could be part of the Bush re-election team in the state.
“I´m looking at the holistic body of an individual and so that´s the reason,’ said Guinn, an honorary co-chairman of the Bush re-election effort in Nevada, along with U.S. Sen. John Ensign and U.S. Reps. Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter. State Attorney General Brian Sandoval is the chairman.
Bush carried Nevada in 2000, following a campaign promise by Bush to ensure “sound science’ prevailed in any decision he made on a nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain.
After his election, Bush approved the Yucca Mountain project, prompting Democrats to criticize him for breaking his promises regarding the project.
Guinn also defended his “irrelevant’ description of people who are opposed to higher taxes even if the need for new levies is clear, and said it was taken out of context to suggest he was talking about some anti-tax legislators.
Guinn insisted that inference was wrong. “But, look, I´m not a crybaby. I just live with it,’ he said.
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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