Sometimes less is more, and in the case of Governor Bill Richardson, and less is definitely better. Steve Terrell points out that in the latest Democratic debate Governor Richardson finally got his fair share of the limelight.
Unfortunately, Steve points out that our dear Governor took the extra time and filled it with half-truths and outright inaccuracies. Here is a taste:
Answering a question about a hot button issue in Nevada — the unpopular Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility — Richardson said: “All my life, as secretary of energy, as a congressman, I oppose the site, for environmental reasons, water saturation.”
However, an Associated Press story this week pointed out that Richardson as a congressman “voted in favor of the 1987 measure that designated Yucca Mountain as the sole dump site to be studied by the federal government.” And during Richardson’s tenure as secretary of the Energy Department in the 1990s, he approved a critical viability assessment, going on record saying, “Overall there is no reason to disqualify the site.”
At the debate, Richardson said, “I would turn Yucca Mountain into a national laboratory. We have the greatest brains in our national lab scientists.”
Great, first we have Congressman Tom Udall supporting budget cuts at Los Alamos labs that would result in massive layoffs and a New Mexico brain drain. And now, our own Governor Richardson wants to have the limited and dwindling national lab funds available to New Mexico diverted to creating a new national lab in Nevada.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?