Editorial: Outrage over DOE maneuvers

Nevadans remain outraged over the Department of Energy's apparent bias toward this state in the site selection process for the nation's high-level nuclear waste repository. Documents obtained recently by the Sun show that the DOE is zeroing in on Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, even though massive scientific studies on the site's suitability haven't been completed.

A two-page memo prepared by TRW Environmental Safety Systems Inc., the primary Yucca Mountain contractor, even went as far as suggesting the contractor had prepared a 60-page report to help the DOE sell the Nevada site to Congress. Last week the furor over the documents intensified.

More than 100 environmental groups sent a letter to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson asking him to disqualify Yucca Mountain as the site to store some 77,000 tons of radioactive garbage. And Nevada's congressional delegation said it was asking the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to probe the DOE's possible bias. This came on the heels of a call from Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., for an inspector general's investigation of the DOE, an inquiry that Reid said ultimately could wind up in the hands of the Justice Department.

Even Richardson weighed in, saying he has asked the inspector general to look into the actions of TRW. Federal law prohibits the DOE and its contractors from taking sides in the site selection process. In the coming weeks, as the Nevada delegation spearheads public hearings into the DOE's cozy ties to its pro-Yucca Mountain contractors, we suspect that Nevadans and others around the country will become even more outraged.

We hope that anger will reach President-elect George W. Bush, who has yet to prove himself on this issue to the state that put him over the top in Campaign 2000. Congress, which like the new president will play a role in the final decision on Yucca Mountain, should hear these concerns as well. We hope everyone gets the message that Nevadans do not want their state to become the nation's nuclear waste dumping ground.

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