Washington ? The Bush administration has determined that it is good science and sound public policy to ship thousands of tons of deadly radioactive waste through virtually every major city in the United States to Yucca Mountain in Nevada for burial.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham claims that burying radioactive wastes that will remain hazardous for more than 240,000 years is a good idea because it is better to have one radioactive waste dump than 131 sites scattered around the country.

Unfortunately, this argument rings as hollow as Yucca Mountain. the Bush administration will merely be creating an additional radioactive waste dump unless they simultaneously shut down every nuclear power plant in the United States.

While Greenpeace has long encouraged an end to the nuclear era, this is not the Bush administration’s intent. Rather than bringing to an end America’s expensive and dangerous flirtation with the atom, the Bush administration is extending the operating licenses for existing nuclear reactors and intends to construct more nuclear plants that will create even more long-lived radioactive waste.

Instead of Abraham’s “one safe site” for these radioactive wastes, the administration’s plan will create a wagon train of dirty bombs that will last for 30 years.

With more than 100,000 shipments across the United States, only the blind or the biased can believe that this scheme will succeed without incident. In light of the attacks of Sept. 11 and the continued threat of nuclear terrorism, the administration’s plan is both irresponsible and dangerous.

If al-Qaida terrorists are seeking radioactive materials for dirty bombs, why would the administration place these deadly wastes onto our highways, rail lines and waterways?

Rather than rolling these terrorist targets through major population centers throughout the United States, the administration should ensure that radioactive wastes and the nuclear reactors that create them are secure from terrorist attack.

More than nine months after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the federal government has done precious little to decrease the vulnerability of nuclear power plants and the high-level radioactive waste they produce.

Regulators, at the behest of the nuclear industry, have opposed increasing the quality of the security forces at nuclear power plants despite the fact that nearly half of those forces failed their security drills prior to Sept. 11. These nuclear bureaucrats repeatedly state that they have received no specific credible threats against nuclear power plants, despite the fact that, according to President Bush, al-Qaida terrorists had diagrams of U.S nuclear power plants in the caves of Tora Bora.

Even if the administration could magically transport all the radioactive waste to Nevada without incident, accident or terrorist attack, Yucca Mountain is eminently unsuitable for its intended purpose.

The federal government has never determined that Yucca Mountain is the best site to store radioactive waste. Rather, it is the only site the government has ever explored.

Dumping deadly radioactive waste in Yucca Mountain will not solve the nuclear industry’s problems; it will only create an additional environmental disaster.

No solution is possible unless and until the government agrees to phase out nuclear power and stop producing radioactive waste. Only then can we begin a legitimate dialogue to determine the best way to secure these deadly wastes and keep them out of the biosphere for the next 240,000 years.

John Passacantando is the executive director of Greenpeace USA.