YUCCA FACTS

Sen. Harry Reid – the first or second most powerful politician in Washington, depending on whom you ask – has assured Nevadans that Yucca Mountain is dead. He says he’s going to continue bleeding the project dry of funding in the budget process until he gets it down to the size where he presumably can drown it in the bathtub.

Hmmm. Where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah. HERE

And Sen. Reid continues to assure us that President Barack Obama – the first or second most powerful politician in Washington, depending on whom you ask – agrees with him. “President Obama and Secretary Chu made a promise to the people of Nevada and to Sen. Reid that they’re going to kill the dump,” Reid spokesperson Jon Summers told the Las Vegas Sun last week. “We have no doubt they’re going to do that.”

No. Doubt.

Which means fellow Democrat and Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto must have missed a memo or something, because she broke out the ol’ tin cup and organ grinder and trotted over to the Senate Finance Committee yesterday asking for another $5-10 million for legal costs to fight a project which the two most powerful politicians in the country today say is…dead.

Now if you think it’s only crazy conservative right-wing extremists such as myself and Nevada Republican Party Chairman Sue Lowden who are scratching our heads over this confusion on Yucca, consider these remarks directed at Cortez Masto at the committee hearing by longtime moderate voice-of-reason Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio:

“You know, I’m really kind of at a loss on all this. I hear all of these statements. Our senior senator says this project is dead, the president’s office says it’s dead, and yet we’re going through this process (of asking for another $10 million). What’s going on?”

Democrat Cortez Masto responded by saying, basically, that fellow Democrat Reid was wrong. “From my perspective (Yucca Mountain) is not dead,” she told Sen. Raggio. “I’m still moving forward and I have to.”

So is Yucca dead or isn’t it? And if it is, then why does the AG need $10 million to continue fighting a dead project? And if it isn’t dead, then why isn’t the state negotiating to RECEIVE $500 million a year in exchange for Yucca instead of PAYING $5 million a year to out-of-state lawyers to fight it? Inquiring taxpayer minds wanna know.