Editorial: Blackmail used on nomination

Senators from both parties seem pleased with Richardson's qualifications to head the department, but some are promising to delay his nomination unless the White House submits to blackmail over the issue of putting a temporary high-level nuclear waste dump in Nevada. Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the nomination will be on hold until the White House agrees to give Richardson more power to deal with nuclear waste.

Murkowski and some others on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee are upset because President Clinton has vowed to veto any legislation that would designate Nevada as a temporary dumpsite for high-level nuclear waste. They say they are concerned that the White House is setting policy, not the Energy Department.

Obviously these senators skipped their government civics course in high school. The president was elected by this nation's voters to establish policy for executive branch agencies. The Senate is hardly the body to meddle with the executive branch. After all, it can't even get its own act together to pass important issues that are under its jurisdiction: a patients' Bill of Rights, campaign finance reform and tobacco legislation.

Nevada is fortunate Clinton is in the White House. Other presidents have not have been as steadfast in their support of science taking precedence over politics in how to dispose of the nation's nuclear waste. As he has done in the past, Clinton should dismiss these hollow threats and refuse to cave in to these unreasonable demands.

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