A fellow who wishes they'd hurry up and build the nation's permanent nuclear waste supposi -- pardon me, repository -- at Yucca Mountain in Nevada wrote in recently to sneer at my column on lengthy delays in building a new bridge across the Colorado River:
"Hmmmm.
"I'm just curious -- How do you differentiate between your attitude in this case and your attitude against a nuclear waste repository in relatively barren, unused parts of Nevada??
"What's the difference between 'neo-Luddite' aboriginal 'rights' (which I concur often are allowed to go to an extreme) and the same which prevents the government from building a sorely needed spent fuel repository???"
I replied:
I do not differentiate between them, because there is no difference.
The residents of Southern Nevada have every right to decide whether or not to build a needed bridge. The Indians to whom the federals propose to give stalling rights over this project do not live in the area -- they live at least as far away as Havasu Falls in Arizona, and in some cases further away than Yuma ... and have, for centuries. There are, to the best of my knowledge, no Native American settlements or reservations or treaty lands in the affected area.
Although I'd rather see the bridge built without any funds being channeled through Washington, this is still a case where local self-determination must prevail. Professional archaeologists have written in to agree with me that "lithic scatter" does not constitute a true archaeological site, and any further substantial delay based on the need to "evaluate" such flint shards -- or ask Indian tribes in neighboring states to document tribal legends about their racial origin in the forbidding cliffs of the Colorado -- is absurd obstructionism.
Also in the case of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump site, Nevadans as citizens of a sovereign state have a right to self-determination, which cannot (under terms of the Constitution which our federal officeholders still swear to "protect and defend") be overruled or abrogated by the federal government. The federal Constitution does provide a method for the Congress to purchase land from (and with the approval of) state legislatures for the erection of "arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings." But there has been no offer to purchase this site, nor has the Nevada Legislature granted its approval for such a land sale, nor is it likely to.
(Some will note Nevada's territorial legislature, prior to statehood, vowed not to challenge federal land claims. Even if such an act could be binding on the sovereign state created in 1864 -- which it cannot -- attempting to bind modern Nevadans to such a scheme, since it violates the original intent of the Constitution, is akin to attempting to enforce ancient deed covenants which ban re-sale of land to blacks or Jews.)
Actually, I "favor" the development of nuclear technology, at least in the sense that I don't believe any such technology can be "put back in the bottle," and that nations which attempt to do so will suffer in competition with those that don't -- consider the Japanese banning of the firearm, and the weakened position in which that left them when Commodore Perry finally showed up.
I suspect this nuclear waste may have great value someday, as reprocessing technology improves. Personally, I might vote for a plan to assume title to the stuff, given a high enough federal rent to pay for constant oversight, and a few other concessions -- permanent waiver of the federal income tax for all residents of Nevada, permanent removal of the BATF and the DEA from within our borders, a few things like that.
But I would never dictate such a solution to my neighbors, against their wishes.
Of course, it's doubtful private industry would have paid the insurance premiums or accepted the liability otherwise inherent in developing nuclear power 45 years ago, without federal intervention which set an arbitrary cap on nuclear accident damages -- a massively inappropriate legislative warping of the free market and of citizens' right to seek full damages.
Without that initial, unjustifiable federal intervention, it's possible there would have been no nuclear power plants at such an early date or in such "dirty" configurations. Thus, the federal government now proposes to violate another right of certain sovereign citizens, to solve a problem it created when it cut off access to the courts for all the sovereign citizens -- a handy example of von Mises' law, that "Every government intervention creates an unintended consequence, which leads to a call for further government interventions," ad infinitum.
You ask what should "prevent the government from building a sorely needed spent fuel repository?"
I reply: What prevents the United States government from building such a waste dump in suburban Paris, Tokyo, or Beijing? Questions of jurisdiction and sovereignty, of course. In fact, there is NOTHING which prevents the Congress from setting aside land and building such a repository, and then filling it will all the toxic waste their little hearts desire ... anywhere within the District Columbia, one of the few places where the Constitution grants the federal Congress "sole legislative authority."
If it's so safe, why don't you urge them to build it there, next to the reflecting pool? They could start tomorrow.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers" is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.
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Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John Hay, 1872
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
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