The Obama campaign has released a new ad specifically to run in Nevada, one of the half-dozen traditionally Republican states in the West that the Obama campaign believes it can win. The ad is a 30 spot and hits Senator McCain for supporting the proposed placement of a Federal deep geological repository storage facility for nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, Nevada which is about 90 miles north west of Las Vegas. McCain has supported the development of Department of Energy (DOE) managed storage facility previoulsy but seems to have back away from the idea recently.
I would seek to establish an international repository for spent nuclear fuel that could collect and safely store materials overseas that might otherwise be reprocessed to acquire bomb-grade materials. It is even possible that such an international center could make it unnecessary to open the proposed spent nuclear fuel storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.”— John McCain, 5/27/08
Obama, of course, has his own Yucca Mountain problems. One of his largest backers is the Illinois-based nuclear giant Exelon which is one of the biggest proponents of a deep geological repository storage facility at Yucca Mountain.
The latest poll for Nevada from Rasmussen Reports is from August 13, 2008. In that poll, John McCain had a slight advantage, 45% to 42%.