A Yucca counteroffer

Certainly, federal agriculture policy has a huge lead on the field, with hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies buying the citizenry nothing but more expensive food. Untold billions of dollars have been poured into a national missile defense system despite the fact that plenty of scientists have doubts it could ever work as intended. Then there’s the upstart filly in the horse race, the ethanol industry, fueled by protectionist tariffs, arbitrary congressional mandates and, yes, those handouts to farmers.

But near the front of the pack, galloping stride for stride with Boston’s bungled “Big Dig” underground freeway system, is the Yucca Mountain Project.

Over the past two decades, about $8 billion has been poured into the planned high-level nuclear waste repository. Bogus scientific modeling, ever-shifting environmental standards and a whole lot of digging about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas haven’t gotten the Department of Energy much closer to opening the facility. In a best-case scenario, the repository might be able to begin accepting waste shipments a decade from now, assuming federal regulators ever give revised safeguards the green light.

And no one has a handle on just how the nuclear energy industry will move thousands of tons of spent fuel to Southern Nevada. The idea with the most traction at this point is a dedicated rail line from Caliente through rural Nevada.

But a draft document that outlines railroad cost estimates reveals the proposed 319-mile track is a boondoggle in its own right. The report, which was circulated among state and local officials last week, says the rail line will likely cost nearly $3.2 billion — $10 million per mile. Bob Halstead, a transportation consultant for the state, says that guess is probably low.

Costs will continue to grow the longer groundbreaking is delayed. Work probably won’t begin on the line before 2010, assuming Congress agrees to fund it.

But why would lawmakers support such an expense when the future of the repository itself is in doubt? Building a dedicated, $3 billion rail line for a dying project makes Alaska’s proposed “Bridge to Nowhere” seem useful — and a bargain to boot.

Mr. Halstead notes that such pressures could prompt the Department of Energy to abandon the rail project and reconsider shipping waste by truck. Which would put the state in an interesting position.

Nevadans have long opposed the shipment of nuclear waste from out-of-state commercial reactors. And only a minority of Nevadans have expressed a desire to negotiate with the nuclear energy industry and the federal government for benefits in exchange for dropping their opposition.

Recall that last year, the Nuclear Energy Institute proposed paying the state $25 million per year to accept waste shipments, then $50 million per year once the first shipment arrived. It was an insulting first offer — one that made Nevada even less willing to bargain.

But the Las Vegas Valley’s highways need billions of dollars worth of improvements over the next decade, and the state has no way to pay for them. If the state is ever going to make a counteroffer to the Nuclear Energy Institute and the Department of Energy, this should be it: Scrap the rail line and give Nevada $4 billion to upgrade existing highways and build new ones.

That way, when the Yucca Mountain site finally closes, filled with nothing but cobwebs, we’d have something to show for it beyond an empty tunnel in the side of a ridge.