By DR. LARRY MOSES
No one asked me but… Yucca Mountain is back. Under the “Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017” legislation to re-instate the move to open Yucca Mountain will be discussed.
It is like the land of the living dead. No matter how many stakes ex-Senator Reid put in it, the Yucca Mountain project is on the prowl again.
The first move to place nuclear waste in Nevada was passed in 1987 and the hole in Yucca Mountain was started. While Senator Harry Reid had enough clout to shut down the Yucca Mountain project, he is no longer in the Senate.
The fact that Senator Reid has retired does not mean his voice is no longer heard. When Representative Ruben Kiheun moves his lips, the words of Harry Reid are spoken. Ruben is under no illusion as to who put him in office and is more than willing to be Harry’s dummy as Harry does his Terry Fator imitation.
What Kihuen and Reid need to understand is that President Obama is gone and President Trump owes them nothing. What better way is there for President Trump to stick his thumb in Harry’s good eye?
The “Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017” puts the Yucca Mountain project back on the table. Rep. Kihuen and Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto are joined in protest of the efforts of the federal government to reopen discussion on Yucca Mountain by Bob Halstead, the executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear projects. Mr. Halstead contends this is a manifestation of the federal government’s failure to recognize the State of Nevada as an independent governmental agency with control over its land.
Halstead references the federal government’s arbitrary tapping of Nevada’s water resources for the construction and maintenance of the site. The bill counters this complaint by stating that the use of water is beneficial to the public interest and no state shall enact a law that discriminates against this use.
One might recall years ago, in the same county that Yucca Mountain is located, the federal government attempted to remove Rancher Wayne Hage’s cattle from the open range in this area. They did this by fencing in all the water holes in this part of the desert hoping to make it impossible for the rancher to graze his cattle. The government succeeded in killing off wild horses and other wildlife in the area.
When confronted with this barbaric act, the feds explained it was their land and their water. This resource did not belong to the Hage’s nor the State of Nevada.
Being a typical cowboy, Mr. Hage sought his own solution to the problem with the BLM. Rather than choosing a physical confrontation, as was the case with Cliven Bundy, Hage sought relief through the court system. When he found that a lawyer was too expensive, he sent one of his sons to law school and sued the federal government.
After a lifetime of litigation, the Hage family finally won a $17 million settlement in a federal district court. This was, by the way, overturned in the ultra-liberal 9th Circuit Court. The federal government’s lawyer stated that he knew that the lower court decision would be overturned because the federal government owned the 9th Circuit Court. In this case, Lady Justice did more than drop her blindfold; she lifted her skirt.
Actually in the 9th Circuit, Lady Justice is no lady at all. She is a camp follower of the liberal left and as far as she is concerned, the law can be damned.
There are those in Nevada who support the opening of the repository.
Steven Curtis, past president of the American Nuclear Society, Nevada Section, stated that he and his organization saw no reason for the people of Nevada to object to Yucca Mountain as a depository for the nation’s nuclear waste. He feels this opens the door for the project to proceed and should be part of the solution to the nation’s nuclear waste disposal dilemma.
Nye County Commission Chairman Dan Schinhofen also supports the bill. He has stated that the nuclear repository would benefit the citizens of Nevada in general and Nye County specifically with well paying jobs.
It is probably a moot point that a major nuclear disaster would destroy Nye County. This should not be of concern, after all, a large part of Nye County is already contaminated from years of nuclear tests in the region.
The Yucca Mountain project is not the disease; it is a symptom of the disease. The disease is that 84 percent of what the map indicates is Nevada is incorrect. The State of Nevada is the I-80 corridor and the metroplex that makes up the Las Vegas Valley. Everything else is territory of the United States under the rule of Federal Government agencies like the BLM, The National Parks Service, and National Monuments.
Most of what we call Nevada is really a territory like Guam and Puerto Rico. If you don’t believe this, let me point you to the actions of the federal government during the round-up of rancher Cliven Bundy’s cattle. All of the violations of federal law and the Constitutional rights of Nevada citizens was perpetrated by federal agents under the direction of mid-level managers of the BLM. The violation of American citizens’ Constitutional rights to freedom of speech, freedom to peaceably assemble, the freedom of the press, as well as the illegal confiscation of cattle in violation of federal Taylor Grazing Act codified in the Nevada Revised Statues would indicate that there was little concern for citizens of the State of Nevada.
What one must remember is that Yucca Mountain is not in the State of Nevada; it is in territory owned by the federal government. It can be accessed without ever crossing land owned by the State of Nevada. Therefore, while Rep. Kihuen laments the fact that there is no representation of Nevada on the committee studying the revival of the Yucca Mountain project there is no reason for Congress to consider the wishes of the people of the State of Nevada.
Thought of the week…Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship.
– A. Philip Randolph
