The Times endorses
I-297 is bad law

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Initiative 297 falsely appeals to the average citizen's sensibility that the state should not be a dumping ground for the nation's nuclear waste.

But the initiative is a false promise fraught with risk for cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation. Chances are it won't stand up in federal court, because judges typically favor the federal government when states try to regulate interstate commerce. Washington lost a similar case in the 1980s; Kentucky in 2001. If the federal government prevails, the state could lose any political clout it has to prevent wholesale import of waste from other states.

Much better for the state to pick its legal battles. Case in point: State regulators this summer celebrated the removal of pumpable liquid waste from all of Hanford's single-shell tanks — an achievement linked directly to the state flexing its muscle in court to negotiate a settlement that established legally enforceable deadlines.

Backers say I-297 will force the federal government to clean up Hanford first — before more nuclear waste is shipped from other states. But that can't be done without shipping Hanford waste elsewhere. More than 90 percent of Hanford's waste is intended for permanent disposal in Nevada, New Mexico and South Carolina.

The tactic has consequences. Imagine those states taking the same stand — and Hanford would be left with the waste long-term.

Which leads to another important point. One special-interest group, Heart of America Northwest, has contributed about $874,000 for signature-gathering and the campaign. The group opposes the Yucca Mountain, Nev., site, where much of Hanford's waste is bound.

The measure also would establish an oversight board that would tilt more to groups like Heart of America than to other Hanford cleanup stakeholders, altering the current, balanced mix of the existing and effective Hanford Advisory Board. It would support the effort by taxing federal cleanup activities, taking more money away from actual cleanup.

I-297 litigation would almost certainly cause the Energy Department to stall cleanup and give Congress reason to cut funding.

Initiatives, with a few exceptions, can make bad law, but especially so on a topic as technically complicated and politically nuanced as nuclear cleanup.

Reject I-297.

(Tomorrow: I-892, the gambling/property-tax initiative)