EDITORIAL: Yucca Mountain responses raise concerns

Here's hoping the GOP presidential field brings the traveling road show back to South Carolina for another debate so they can be asked again about Yucca Mountain. Just a hunch their answers would differ from the ones they gave last week in Nevada.

Yucca Mountain, the multi-billion nuclear waste repository in Nevada, currently sits empty and unused after the Obama administration shelved the project in 2009. Republicans across the Palmetto State have been vocal in their opposition to the closure decision, and have pushed diligently to get Yucca Mountain back on track and thus open for much of the waste from the Savannah River Site.

GOP presidential candidates struck a different cord last week, however. Most expressed opposition to Yucca Mountain, perhaps in a nod to the opinions of those in the debate's host state. It would certainly not be the first case of a candidate for office pandering for a political audience. But this turn seems a rather about face from the GOP line, and certainly not commonplace to see them throw their support behind something President Obama and Sen. Harry Reid back.

South Carolina politicians seemed taken aback by the candidates' comments, with Gov. Nikki Haley calling for a $1.2 billion refund if Yucca Mountain does not move forward. She put it plain and clear: If Yucca Mountain is not opened back up? "We want our money back."

Sens. Lindsay Graham and Jim Demint also took the candidates to task, saying the original decision to close Yucca was a political one, and that science should drive this decision, not politics.

Perhaps the most to-the-point comment came from state Rep. Bill Taylor: "It's there. It's been built. We have spent billions of dollars to do it. It is now the world's largest wine cellar, unopened and unused. There's no point in going someplace else when it's right there."

The Palmetto State's Republican leadership have been unified in the belief that Yucca Mountain should open. To see Republican presidential candidates take an opposite view is unsettling. When they return to South Carolina, they will no doubt be asked about Yucca Mountain again. Of course, if their answers do change from when they were in Nevada, we have more to worry about than where to put our nuclear waste.