Tinseltown Actor Flaunts His Naivete

Actor Bruce Willis has lived with Tinseltown’s virtual reality so long, he seems to believe anything’s possible - for example, that all he has to do is sneer to make Idaho Gov. Phil Batt and the Republican Legislature disappear.

Willis recently flaunted his political naivete on the Capitol steps in Boise, demanding that his adopted state quit accepting nuclear waste.

Willis believes Idaho got a bum deal in October when Batt agreed to accept 1,133 shipments of spent nuclear fuel at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory over the next 40 years. In exchange, the U.S. Department of Energy has agreed to remove the nuclear waste from the site by 2035.

Said Willis: “If you can’t provide us with a state that is nuclear-waste-free, then we will get a new governor and we will get a new Legislature.”

Cybill Shepherd’s old “Moonlighting” partner hasn’t learned much about Idaho in his eight years of playing a Hailey businessman. If Republican farmers who control Idaho’s Legislature routinely can ignore North Idaho’s needs, they’re certainly not going to listen to an actor - particularly one flanked by two Democratic congressional candidates.

Winning over the Idaho Legislature isn’t as easy as defeating make-believe terrorists on a movie set. Senate President Pro Tem Jerry Twiggs, R-Blackfoot, reacted to Willis’ political coming-out party predictably: “I would suggest that his remarks concerning nuclear waste show how little he knows about that subject.”

Both Twiggs and Willis make legitimate points.

Many Idahoans have fought the dumping of nuclear waste for years. But the issue’s not as simple as a sitcom plot or some symbolic “nuclear-free zone.”

Batt made the best of a bad situation.

The U.S. government could have forced Idaho to accept unlimited shipments with no agreement for future removal. Although the federal government has a poor track record of fulfilling obligations to remove nuclear waste, there is evidence Batt’s deal may be working.

Last week, President Clinton signed legislation in which Congress commits to financing the federal government’s end of the nuclear-waste deal. At the same time, Batt received assurances that construction is on schedule for the New Mexico dump that is required to begin taking Idaho’s nuclear waste by 1999.

Willis has as much right as anyone else to speak out on issues that concern him. But that doesn’t mean he’s more of an expert than the guy next door - no matter how many bad guys he kills on the big screen.

If he would use his movie-star status to denounce movie violence instead of nuclear waste, Idahoans might listen.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board