But, in the Senate Special Select Subcommittee on Giving Sen. Hillary Clinton Things to Talk About to Nevada Voters, the Yucca Mountain project was totally, irreversibly killed. Yay for Nevada!

And talk the good senator did, in a brief conference call with reporters after the hearing. Let’s see, where are our notes? Oh, yeah, here they are:

"Yucca … seismic … earthquakes … volcanoes…" (here we drew a picture of a volcano spewing out little radioactive symbols, and a sad face over Las Vegas) "…administration … rushing to get license … ’soon’ says DOE…" (here we drew an inappropriate picture of Nevada being screwed over by President George W. Bush while a devil-looking Dick Cheney watches, smiling).

Let’s see, what else "administration pushing … no radiation standard … even nuke industry giving up …" (here we drew a picture of our favorite character, Mr. Stick Man, enjoying a faraway beach with a bucket of Corona, no fears of nuclear contamination on his stick mind).

The point? Yucca hasn’t changed, and there’s plenty of momentum propelling it forward, and we’re not just talking about the billions sunk into the project already. A single hearing — hell, even a year of hearings — isn’t going to change that.

Clinton, however, thinks she knows what will: Electing her president! "I think it is clear we have reached the time when we have to move on from Yucca Mountain," she said. "It’s going to take a new president to kill this project, and that’s what I’ll do."

So what are we going to do with all the existing waste? Should we authorize new nuclear power plants with no plan for what to do with the waste? And what if the Energy Department seeks, or gets, a license for its Yucca project before Bush leaves office? Well, those were questions that had to be left for another day, since Clinton had to run. (She’s probably heading to the airport to catch a plane to personally fill in the big hole that is Yucca right now. Or something.)

Oh, and she refused a Washington Times reporter’s question about last night’s debate, when all the other Democrats were really mean to her. Too bad. That answer might have been interesting.