LETTERS: Yucca represents huge opportunity

To the editor:

It was refreshing to see that Reps. Cresent Hardy and Mark Amodei will be joining the informational tour of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository site (“Two Nevadans joining Yucca Mountain visit,” March 19 Review-Journal). Perhaps they will be open-minded enough to consider the scientific safety and environmental review results in assessing the possibility of proceeding with the project.

Sen. Harry Reid has stubbornly used only his bruised ego to shut down the project for way too long. The Yucca project represents a huge opportunity for Nevada, which we can’t afford to unnecessarily reject. The nuclear utilities that own the waste pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year to store it, and that money could be used to solve the state’s education woes, among a host of other things we need.

TOM KELLER

HENDERSON

Reid and wealth

To the editor:

Steve Sebelius has done it again. He provocatively illustrates everything that is wrong with our country by singing the praises of our very own Sen. Harry Reid, while at the same time — unwillingly I’m sure — demonstrating the abject hypocrisy of the senator (“Sen. Reid calls it quits,” Sunday Review-Journal).

Mr. Sebelius talks of Sen. Reid’s open disdain for inherited wealth and mentions Mitt Romney and the Koch Brothers. I guess they didn’t work for it? I wonder if Sen. Reid feels the same way about the family that represents the “pillar of public service.” I speak of America’s Royal Family from my home state of Massachusetts — the Kennedys. Or perhaps another family of Democratic icons, the Rockefellers?

For the last 30 years, Sen. Reid has been feeding at the public trough, making deals that benefit him, his family for generations to come and all his like-minded buddies in politics. Maybe this disdain for inherited wealth should be applied in a bipartisan fashion, Mr. Sebelius. I wonder how wealthy Mr. Reid would have become if he had to make it out here in the hinterland?

Sen. Reid will be remembered, as will President Barack Obama, as one of the most polarizing figures in our country’s history. Good riddance, Sen. Reid. We as citizens expect you to give back. Remember, to whom much is given, much is expected.

MIKE BRYANT

LAS VEGAS

Extended unemployment

To the editor:

Jeff Bell’s commentary in the March 20 Review-Journal was ridiculous (“Republicans deserve credit for rebound”). The thrust of the piece was that the surge in employment is a result of “a policy change that President Obama and other Democrats fought hard to prevent: the end of extended unemployment benefits.”

There are no facts or credible experts presented to substantiate the assertion. The expert quoted by Mr. Bell is John Mueller of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, an organization dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy. I believe Sen. Dean Heller and Congressman Joe Heck were in favor of extending unemployment benefits.

The worst argument that Mr. Bell made was that the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy was one of the programs “that stifled growth.” Where is the proof to that statement? Even today, the stock market dips when there are indications the Fed will increase rates, and it rises when the indications are that the Fed will wait. Low interest rates are good for business and therefore good for the economy and job growth.

I am glad for the things Republicans (and Democrats) have done to extend the economic rebound, but eliminating extended unemployment benefits is not one of those things.

DOUG FLECKNER

LAS VEGAS

Pipeline no solution

To the editor:

Before we spend billions of dollars on a pipeline to bring well water from Northern Nevada and turn that region into another Owns Valley, we should consider other alternatives. For the billions of dollars a pipeline would cost, we could build a desalinization plant on California coast and trade the water it produces for some of California’s share of the Colorado River. The ocean is an inexhaustible source of water, whereas the groundwater in Northern Nevada is not, and we might pump it dry after a few years.

Other things to consider: Who is going to pay for the pipeline to Northern Nevada, and who is going to benefit? The pipeline will be paid for by everyone in the Las Vegas Valley who pays a water bill, which is almost everyone, either directly or as part of their rent. That means that everyone living here now will help pay for the new pipeline, even though we already have water.

The water piped down here will not be for us, but rather for developers and new people moving into the valley. The developers benefit the most because they will get to build more homes and commercial properties and sell them, but the developers will not pay for the pipeline. The ratepayers will.

ANDERS SORENSON

LAS VEGAS