Our View: Supportable stance on nukes

Nevada Republicans reaffirmed on Saturday how strong Nevada can be when residents get behind a single issue, such as nuclear-waste storage at Yucca Mountain.

Going into their state convention, Republican delegates were considering a platform that was decidely wimpish when it came to opposition to the dump site outside Las Vegas.

It talked about "science over politics" and other familiar phrases that echo national party stands - Republican and Democrat - instead of coming right out and saying "Hell no, not Nevada" to the nation's nuclear-waste dilemma.

Fortunately, when it came time to shape the state GOP platform, delegates changed the wording to make sure it was "adamantly opposed" to storage here.

Part of the reason for the change, of course, was purely political. Democrats would have hammered the issue, particularly in the race between John Ensign and Ed Bernstein for U.S. Senate, and Republicans wouldn't have had much to say.

Instead, though, we appear to again have the prospects for a united, bipartisan front when it comes to fighting nuclear waste storage in Congress.

In fact, it's refreshing to have an issue that we can attack as Nevadans first, and Republicans or Democrats second.

To reiterate a couple of basic reasons we oppose nuclear storage at Yucca Mountain:

No alternative site has been studied, and the focus has changed from evaluating whether Yucca Mountain is suitable for nuclear storage to engineering a way to make it suitable.

The U.S. Department of Energy still has not addressed transportation routes to Yucca Mountain - something we see as vitally important to evaluating the entire scheme.

Many other issues fall into the "science over politics" category. At this point, however, we're just satisfied that the political maneuvering at the Republican convention resulted in a supportable stance on the issue.