Editorial: Friendship has its bounds, after all

Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn is trying to be a good neighbor to a fellow Republican, Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt. As the Sun's Mary Manning reported earlier this week, Nevada and Utah officials have banded together to oppose a proposed temporary high-level nuclear waste storage site on an Indian reservation in northwestern Utah. Officials in Utah worry that even temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel rods on Goshute Indian tribal land by eight electric utilities could pose risks to the environment, health and safety. Private Fuel Services, the consortium of electric companies, believes that as many as 4,000 steel canisters should be filled with nuclear waste and stored there until a permanent repository is built. Currently, Nevada's Yucca Mountain is the only site being considered by the federal government for the permanent disposal of high-level nuclear waste.

While Nevada officials are willing to lend a hand, reciprocity is nonexistent from Utah's congressional delegation -- at least when it comes to the federal government's underhanded efforts to bury high-level nuclear waste in Nevada. Don't forget that Utah's two members in the Senate (Republicans Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett) and three representatives in the House (Republicans James Hansen, Merrill Cook and Christopher Cannon) all voted this year in favor of the GOP congressional leadership's nuclear waste storage bill. That legislation, which was vetoed by President Clinton, would have weakened radiation standards at Yucca Mountain and ensured that Nevada would receive nuclear waste by 2007. With friends like these, who needs enemies?