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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
Nevada's Harry Reid talks with Salon about why he joined the GAO lawsuit against Dick Cheney and why he called George W. Bush a liar.
Mar 1, 2002 | It's nuclear war. Or nuclear waste war, at any rate. It began on Feb. 15, when President Bush announced that he would formally recommend Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the site where the United States would bury its nuclear waste. And it has accelerated this week, as Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, filed a "friend of the court" brief with the General Accounting Office's lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney. The GAO -- and Sen. Reid -- want to know more about the private meetings Cheney held with energy executives as the administration was developing its energy policy.
That information, Reid believes, will explain the Yucca Mountain decision. "President Bush has broken his promise," said an angry Reid shortly after the White House decision. "All Americans should be concerned, not just because he lied to me or the people of Nevada and indeed all Americans, but because the president's decision threatens American lives."
The next day, according to a knowledgeable source, White House chief of staff Andrew Card called Reid three times to discuss why the senator had called the president a liar. Reid did not return any of the calls. But Reid obviously stands by his words. During the presidential campaign, Bush assured Nevada's citizens that he would not ship nuclear waste to any proposed site "unless it's been deemed scientifically safe" -- a vow, says Reid, that he made to win Nevada, a state whose electoral votes he desperately needed (and ended up carrying by just 3.4 percent).
Nevada politicians have long fought attempts to turn their state into a dumping ground for the 77,000 tons of nuclear waste stockpiled throughout the country (as well as the 2,000 tons of new waste generated each year). Since Congress picked Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste site in 1987, more than $4 billion has been spent, by some estimates, on studying the suitability of the site. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told reporters, "It is my strong belief the science supports the safe use of this repository." But Reid cites the General Accounting Office, the Inspector General of the Department of Energy, the Inspector General of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board as all having raised various concerns about the decision to proceed with the Yucca Mountain site.
The decision is anything but final; GOP Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn has 60 days to object to the decision; he is expected to formally file his objections to the choice by April. Congress will then have approximately three months to override Guinn's objections, which promises to be a tough fight.
In the meantime, Reid is convinced that the task force list will explain what went wrong. "There is no question that Vice President Cheney met on several occasions with nuclear power executives," Reid said on Monday. He charged that after energy executives met with Cheney's task force, Bush "flip-flopped on the issue, and I think these meetings had something to do with it."
The White House vehemently denies Reid's assertions. "The president made the right decision for the country, after a thorough review by the EPA and the Department of Energy found the site to be scientifically safe," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told Salon. "As far as the issue of the lawsuit, we welcome the opportunity to fight for the important principle of the president being able to get open and candid advice to make sound public policy decisions."
On Thursday afternoon, Salon talked with Sen. Reid about the growing legal battle with the White House.
It's a fairly bold move, suing the administration. How did you make this decision?
I feel that President Bush was elected president of the United States because he carried Nevada. And he carried Nevada in an unusual way. He came to Nevada once during the entire campaign. He came to Lake Tahoe. And he refused to answer questions from reporters because of the nuclear waste issue. Al Gore was way out in front on the nuclear waste issue, and he was way out in front in state polls. So later in the campaign Bush sent Cheney to the state a couple times to say that they would be just like Clinton and Gore on the issue and the decision would be only based on sound science.
Since then there have been scientific reports about Yucca Mountain. GAO reported that there are 292 investigative reports about the site that have not been done. The Nuclear Waste Review Board has said that the science surrounding the decision to store waste at Yucca Mountain is poor.
