Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Attn: Mr. Abraham

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

AN OPEN LETTER to Spencer Abraham, Secretary of Energy.

Like you, sir, I was not present at the recent debacle you created to serve as a public hearing for those wishing to comment on the Department of Energy's plan to shove high-level nuclear waste down Nevada's throat. Actually, I was there at the place -- the barbed-wire laden, security guard heavy, top-secret looking, scary-to-the-public facility -- that you chose to hold the hearing. I chose, however, to leave around 10 o'clock when it was obvious to me that the number I was given to speak would not be called until well after 1 a.m. In truth, my name was called at 1:20 a.m. I left knowing that I could submit a written response. This, by the way, is that response that I trust you will insert into the record and give the same weight to that the law requires you give to the other comments made at the hearing.

Unlike you, however, there were hundreds of Nevadans who did show up to tell your representatives what they really thought about the DOE's plan to send what we all know will be unlimited tons of high-level radioactive waste to Las Vegas on its way to Yucca Mountain, which is just a few miles from the Fremont Street Experience. And what representatives they were. I don't remember their names but I am quite certain it doesn't matter. Those three people were sent to Las Vegas to grin and bear the hearing, make no comment, show no emotion and to maintain at all times a "what the heck am I doing here" look upon their faces. They succeeded on all fronts. Had you been there, Mr. Secretary, you would have had to come to the same conclusion that any discussion held that night was exactly like talking to a wall.

And that is what I would like to talk about today.

Nevadans have long known that trying to talk sense to the DOE was very much akin to speaking to walls. We have spoken of our concerns for health, safety and economic security, and we have heard nothing in return to help assuage our fears. We have talked about the laws that apply to siting the nuclear dump and the number of ways the DOE has avoided them and just plain ignored them, and we get nothing in return to help explain the subterfuge. We have talked for years about earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters that could and will occur during the lifetime of Yucca Mountain, and we hear nothing in return from the DOE to explain why we are needlessly concerned.

In short, Mr. Abraham, we are talking to a wall that you have helped build and maintain which, by your actions last week, has reached new heights of disdain for the citizens of Nevada.

Since I have spent a good deal of my life butting up against walls, I am well suited to this particular task. Unlike others in the media who are willing to throw up their arms and admit defeat, I still believe that in a democracy it is undemocratic to impose a federal will upon an unwilling state. I still believe that reason and good sense can overcome the bureaucratic mantra that says once we have spent the money we have to go forward no matter how wrong we learn we have been. The opposite is true in America. The beauty of a democracy is the ability to change course when the facts and the will demand such action. This is one of those times.

Just three weeks ago the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper not unfriendly to your administration, ran a story under the headline, "Scientists Tout Method for Reprocessing Nuclear Waste." What followed was a lengthy story about the probability of transmutation and recycling of radioactive waste. Not the possibility, mind you, the probability. That means that given the time and the financial resources necessary, it is likely that an answer to the nuclear waste issue can be found.

The latest form of recycling high-level waste is known as pyroprocessing. It extracts plutonium from nuclear waste that gets around most objections that prior administrations had regarding nuclear security and it does so by allowing the end product to be reused in the production of energy, which has a moneymaking component attached to it. In short, this could be the answer that scientists have been searching for decades and, but for a few dollars and some time, could find that solution.

So, in the face of mounting evidence that science in the 21st century can and will solve the waste problem in a most efficient and geologically responsible fashion, what does the DOE do? Nothing. Unless you count stonewalling by stonefaced, uncaring bureaucrats determined to sit through the heat of the "public" hearings without listening to a word that was uttered, as doing something.

Why is it, Mr. Abraham, that you seem intent on pushing through a flawed political plan that was devised decades ago and that was based on science derived from caveman days -- burying the mess -- when you have at your disposal the wherewithal to chase a few scientific theories that hold the promise of a solution that works for everyone and not against anyone?

Is it about money? Could it be that you believe that once a few billion dollars have been spent chasing down a rabbit hole that it is incumbent upon you and President George W. Bush to keep throwing tax dollars down that same hole even when you know it is the wrong way to go? I hope that isn't your position because your administration has already told us that we have billions and trillions of dollars to spend doing what is right for America. Certainly, an acknowledgment that we have made a mistake that cost a few billion dollars but which will be rectified in the name of good public policy and doing what is the American thing to do will inure to the President's benefit and show him to be a man of good conscience and good sense.

And that's where you can help him be as good as he can be. You can take the heat for reversing what has been a bad plan from the get-go. You can recommend to President Bush that he spend the billions necessary to promote a good, sufficient scientific answer to this problem and abandon this dump theory long before President Bush needs to deal with it. You can make your own mark by ordering safe and secure dry-cask storage at the sites where the waste currently sits, while committing the funds necessary to challenge science to pursue what it already knows will be the right answer.

By doing so, you will avoid making George Bush an albatross around the necks of Nevada's political leadership; you will avoid a states rights confrontation that we haven't seen since Civil War days; you will avoid putting upon the heads and hearts of Nevada's parents the guilt of staying in a place they will know will kill their children or grandchildren; you will avoid a street brawl that will most surely happen in the U.S. Congress when Nevada's senior Sen. Harry Reid will pull out every stop to protect the state he loves; and you can earn a place in the history books for helping to solve appropriately a problem that no one else has yet been willing to tackle.

There is, shall we say, a whole lot riding on the way you carry out your constitutional responsibilities to this nation. If you think you want to do it the right way, Mr. Secretary, you can start by showing Nevadans that you give a damn about what they think. How about a real public hearing? One that has not only questions but answers that people can understand. One that benefits the public and doesn't manipulate them through clever lobbying agents. Just say the word and get on a plane.

We'll find a hall big enough and public enough to handle the democracy that will result.

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