Yucca Mountain money down the drain

We respectfully disagree with the congressman from Ohio.

Storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain has never been about national security, and the events of Sept. 11, 2001, changed nothing except to give proponents a ruse to distract people from the real issues.

U.S. Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee wants to pump up the Yucca Mountain project budget for 2004 to $764 million -- even more than President Bush had requested.

"My top DOE priority is Yucca Mountain. The money is here to make the program work," he said.

As disturbed as we are at the way nuclear storage has been thrust on Nevada, we're equally dismayed by Hobson's reasoning that throwing enough money at the project will make it safe.

That's how we got where we are. The fundamental reasons for choosing Yucca Mountain for storage were its geography and geology. But now that research has shown those factors provide no advantage -- and may even be a disadvantage -- the Department of Energy is trying to engineer its way out of a corner.

We'll count on Nevada Sen. Harry Reid to knock down that funding request, as he has in years past. Nevertheless, it was another comment from Hobson that raised our bile.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks "changed everything," he said. "This is not just an energy issue. This is a homeland security issue."

His argument that nuclear waste is more vulnerable scattered at reactor sites around the country than a central site overlooks two obvious facts. Most of the waste will have to be shipped from the East to Nevada, and the method for shipping it hasn't yet been determined.

Until the Energy Department and congressmen in waste-producing states like Ohio realize the Yucca plan is deeply flawed and begin working on alternatives, most of the taxpayers' money spent there is simply going down a very deep hole.