West Views — Opinions from newspapers commenting on Western issues

KEMPTHORNE FAILED AT INTERIOR DEPARTMENT

Times-News, Twin Falls

How could things go so wrong for Dirk Kempthorne at the Department of the Interior?

The former Idaho governor and U.S. senator and his predecessor, Gale Norton, presided over the most corrupt period in the agency since Albert Fall and the Teapot Dome Scandal of the 1920s.

"Short of a crime, anything goes at the Department of the Interior," said the agency's inspector general, Earl Devaney.

Devaney has been a busy man during Kempthorne's 33-month tenure as secretary of the interior, which ends when Barack Obama is sworn in as president on Jan. 20. This month Devaney reported to Congress that on 15 separate occasions the department's political appointees had weakened protections for endangered species against the advice of the agency's scientists, whose work they either ignored or distorted.

Julie MacDonald, a former deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks, resigned last year after an earlier report found she had run roughshod over agency scientists and violated federal rules by giving internal documents to industry lobbyists.

In September, Devaney delivered three reports to Congress detailing widespread corruption in the Minerals Management Service, the division responsible for granting offshore oil leases and collecting royalties. According to Devaney, officials accepted gifts, steered contracts to favored clients and engaged in drugs and sex with oil company employees.

Just in the past few months, the Interior Department sold oil and gas leases near Arches and Dinosaur national parks in Utah, shortened the public comment period for actions under the Endangered Species Act, and opened up 3,700 miles of new pipeline and power corridors across public lands in the West.

Even Kempthorne's successes were muted by ideology and flawed science. In declaring the polar bear threatened because of climate change, he said the action "should not open the door to use the (endangered species list) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants and other sources." Then he issued special rules exempting from the law offshore oil and gas drilling in prime polar bear habitat off Alaska's north coast.

It's been disheartening to watch a man who was an honest politician and an independent thinker back in Idaho become part of the corrupt culture of the agency he leads - and become captive to Vice President Dick Cheney's philosophy that the Interior Department is essentially in business to assist oil and gas companies.

Simply put, Secretary Kempthorne botched his stewardship of the public lands in his care. Americans - and Idahoans - deserved better.

WHERE DOES ALL THE WASTE GO?

The New York Times

Tens of thousands of tons of spent fuel and military waste have been piling up at temporary storage sites around the country while the federal government has struggled, unsuccessfully, to find a long-term solution.

Expert groups have long recommended that the nuclear waste should be buried in a stable, leak-resistant geological formation. Yucca Mountain, the only site now under consideration, has run into so many technical problems and so much political opposition that its future is uncertain. The site is still awaiting licensing from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

In the 1980s, the federal government visualized two repositories - one in the West and one in the East - to spread the burden fairly. Congress eventually chose one site in Nevada. The only concession to Nevada was that no more than 70,000 metric tons could be stored at Yucca Mountain until a second repository was in operation. The amount of nuclear waste now stored at production sites and waiting for permanent disposal is expected to reach that limit by 2010. The Energy Department now has recommended that the 70,000-metric-ton limit be eliminated.

It would make sense to expand Yucca Mountain rather than undertake the arduous and controversial process of evaluating sites in other states. The political tides are running against the Yucca Mountain site. During a primary debate in Las Vegas, Barack Obama pledged to Nevada voters that he would "end the notion of Yucca Mountain." His choice for energy secretary, Steven Chu, is also unenthusiastic.

A currently powerful Nevada congressional delegation, led by its U.S. senators - Democrat Harry Reid, the majority leader, and John Ensign, the fourth-ranking Republican - also is pushing to kill off the project.

Our hope is that opponents of the repository will wait for a verdict from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before prejudging the site as unacceptable. Nuclear waste is piling up and the country needs to find a safe place to store it.