Columnist Jon Ralston: Nuke waste problem intensifies

Jon Ralston, who publishes the Ralston Report, writes a column for the Sun on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or by e-mail at [email protected].

A few weeks ago, in a conference room at Howard Hughes Corp. headquarters, House Majority Leader Dick Armey wondered aloud to a small group of business leaders.

Someday, one attendee remembered the Texas Republican saying, somebody is going to point out how much money Nevada has left on the table by not taking the benefits package associated with the dump, perhaps more than $1 billion.

Armey told the small group that he realized none of the politicians could make such an argument in a state where deviating from nuclear waste dump opposition is tantamount to a self-administered lethal injection. Perhaps, Armey brainstormed, the business community could go around the elected officials and make the case. No, some of the business types told him, scorn would be heaped upon them, probably destroying their bottom lines.

I relate this vignette in the wake of the latest crowing by the Nevada delegation that the most recent loss is again a win for the state on the dump. As is the norm, the House's veto-vulnerable vote on the Senate dump bill was followed by a rush to take credit and hardly veiled partisan broadsides belying the usual public palaver about the state having a united front.

But while the Jim Gibbons-Shelley Berkley "I did it" sweepstakes is as silly and misleading as the Harry Reid-Richard Bryan jockeying in the Senate, it strikes me that in all the years this issue has confronted the state, no group has made the partisan argument so easy as the current House GOP leadership.

Granted, as time has gone by and waste has piled up at nuclear plants, the pressure on Congress to solve the problem has intensified, so if the Democrats were in control, they surely would be taking a similar tack. But for the GOP, it's not just Armey. House Whip Tom DeLay is a dump proponent and House Speaker Dennis Hastert has a more parochial interest than any recent speaker -- he has tons of waste in his home state of Illinois.

That has allowed Democrats such as Berkley to produce statements from House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt smashing the GOP leadership and given sustenance to Democratic Senate underdog Ed Bernstein, who can point to the Republican Party's advocacy for the dump. It is no coincidence that Bernstein's Republican opponent, John Ensign, put out a statement after the vote that said, in part: "It's important to set aside our partisan labels on issues that affect our state like this one."

Of course he's right. But he's also demonstrating the once-burned-twice-shy principle. After Reid shamelessly used the issue against him in 1998, Ensign is trying to inoculate himself at every opportunity. He has a vested political interest in not seeing this become partisan.

Berkley, on the other hand, has a vested interest in seeing state Sen. Jon Porter, her foe, tarred with guilt by association with the House GOP leadership. Thus the Gephardt release and the attacks on Porter from surrogates in the Democratic Party. (The irony, though, is that many Democrats voted against the bill this week not because they support Nevada but because they thought the House legislation, which has interim storage, should have been considered before the Senate bill.)

All of this doesn't take into account presidential race politics, where Vice President Al Gore's backing of President Clinton's veto promise is being contrasted with George W. Bush's silence and coziness with dump proponents.

Which brings up another question. Suppose the worst: A president hostile to Nevada's interests on the dump is elected. What happens then? Will any of the delegation then raise the heretical notion of seeking benefits or will the rush to point partisan fingers begin anew?

Take a guess.

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