Kerry assails Bush on planned nuclear waste dump
GOP: Kerry has changed positions
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LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry used a stop in Nevada Tuesday to criticize President Bush's support for a nuclear waste dump there and to accuse the Bush administration of placing ideology ahead of science.
Kerry accused Bush of breaking a promise he made as a presidential candidate in 2000 to oppose the creation of a facility for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, unless it was scientifically safe.
In July 2002, Bush signed a bill designating the site as the nation's central repository for radioactive waste.
"The person I am running against in this race, the president, came here to Nevada, stood up in front of Nevada and made a promise to Nevada that this waste would not come to Yucca Mountain and to Nevada," Kerry said. "And within weeks and months, that was reversed."
Bush carried Nevada, which has five electoral votes, by fewer than four percentage points in 2000.
Nevada's Republican governor, Kenny Guinn, opposed the move, as has Nevada's congressional delegation.
Both of Nevada's U.S. senators -- Harry Reid, a Democrat, and John Ensign, a Republican -- oppose the Yucca Mountain plan. While Reid joined Kerry at his Las Vegas event, Ensign issued a statement on behalf of the Bush campaign that accused Kerry of misleading state voters about his opposition to the facility.
"His voting record until 1997 is one of supporting the repository, and he voted to make Nevada the sole repository site for waste," Ensign said. "Nevadans deserve more than efforts to scare and mislead them."
The Bush campaign said Kerry voted in support of the Yucca Mountain plan six times. Kerry said the campaign was pointing to "a few procedural votes," but said he has opposed "the real substance" of the plan for a decade.
Opponents say the site is not safe and that waste shipments from commercial nuclear power stations and government nuclear weapons plants would put millions of Americans in jeopardy and provide tempting targets for terrorists. They also point to studies by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, that criticized the Energy Department's handling of the project.
Tuesday was the second day Kerry has used science to assail the Bush administration. Monday, his campaign took advantage of the third anniversary of Bush's limits on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to argue that the restrictions are hindering research toward cures for a number of deadly and debilitating diseases.
Bush maintains he has struck a reasonable balance between support for scientific research while protecting the "potential for life" with embryos.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the United States of America deserves a president of the United States who believes in science," Kerry said. "And it's not just the science of Yucca Mountain -- it's the science of global warming. It's the science of stem cell research and the policies of the future. It's the science of clean air and clean water."
Speaking at a Las Vegas middle school near one of the proposed transportation routes to Yucca Mountain, Kerry said that if the country's nuclear waste sites were better guarded, "we could leave it where it is, where it is safe" while searching for a long-term solution.
