The Battle Of Yucca Mountain

By DOUGLAS WALLER

President Bush's decision last month to make Nevada's Yucca Mountain the burial site for 77,000 tons of nuclear reactor waste may have seemed a good idea to the residents of 49 of the United States. But the state of Nevada is about to launch a $5 million media campaign designed to block the nuclear garbage dump. The state's powerful U.S. Senator, Democrat Harry Reid, has recruited two former White House chiefs of staff--John Podesta, who served under Bill Clinton, and Kenneth Duberstein, of the Reagan White House, to lobby Congress. Show-biz stars like Christie Brinkley and Wayne Newton will also speak out. Most dramatically, the campaign plans to send trucks with mock nuclear casks into cities around the country, where they will get stuck in traffic to highlight the problems with hauling waste to Nevada.

Proponents of the plan will be out in force too. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has retained John Sununu, chief of staff for former President George Bush, and onetime vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro to lobby for the nuclear industry, which is desperate for the burial site and has pumped $29 million in soft money into the national political parties over the past 10 years. The Nuclear Energy Institute, representing reactor operators and manufacturers, has been flying in about 90 legislators and their aides each year for the past 10 years for tours of the site, followed by nights out at the casinos in nearby Las Vegas. Congress may begin debate on Yucca's fate by late summer, but one thing is clear now: opponents don't yet have the votes to block it.

--By Douglas Waller