Clinton was able to use the Yucca Mountain issue to do better than average in Nevada, and due to Perot's presence on the ballot was able to win two narrow pluralities there in 1992 and 1996. Gore tried to do the same in 2000, but that time no one was taking tens of thousands of votes away from Bush and Bush won the state 49.5% to 46.0% even though Bush didin't pander to anti-Yucca Nevadans and promised that the decision on the nuclear waste depository would be made based on "sound science" and not politics. If Kerry tries some anti-Yucca demagogery in 2004, I don't think it will go anywhere, since (i) the depository was already approved by both houses of Congress and signed by the President, and there's no way that a repeal of that law would be approved by both houses, and (ii) one of the Senators who voted in favor of the Yucca Mountain depository, both in the final vote and in several preliminary votes over the years, is no other than John Edwards.
My mother in law kives in Las Vegas and hates President Bush. She claims that when he was campaigning in Nevada in 2000 he promised to oppose the Yucca Mountain project. What you have stated sounds more like something he really might have said.
It is my understanding that there are something like 131 different sites in the U.S. for dumping nuclear waste and it would be safer to have it in one secure location that meets the geological requirements.