BY DAVID DEMILLE
ddemille@thespectrum.com

ST. GEORGE - Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson blasted two Republican Senate candidates Monday for saying they would support renewed nuclear weapons testing.

Attorney Mike Lee and businessman Tim Bridgewater made headlines last week when they signed a pledge called "Peace Through Strength" that includes a call for testing of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Although both qualified their position by saying they would only consider underground tests in special circumstances, Matheson said the track record of nuclear weapons testing in Nevada should make future efforts out of the question.

"I can't believe we're talking about it," he said.

Above-ground testing of nuclear weapons was banned in 1963, and underground blasts stopped in 1992, but many Utahns, called "Downwinders," faced cancer and other health affects attributed to radioactive fallout. Matheson's father, former Utah Gov. Scott Matheson, was a Downwinder who died of cancer linked to fallout.

"This is an issue that obviously touches my family, but it touches almost every family in Southern Utah, so it gets my attention when somebody brings up nuclear testing," he said.

Claudia Wright, Matheson's opponent in an upcoming June primary, took a similar stance, saying nuclear testing is one of the issues she would "be willing to lie down on the railroad tracks over."

If the largest nuclear threat to the U.S. is a terrorist getting a nuclear bomb, it wouldn't make much sense to have more, she said, adding that she doesn't believe anyone who says underground testing is safe.

"They were saying it was completely safe when they invited people to come out and watch the mushroom clouds," she said.

Matheson's campaign opened a new website called keeputahsafefromnukes.org, which depicts a mushroom cloud and the phrase "Their Utah" above a story about the two candidates saying they would support testing, drawing some fire from Morgan Philpot, the Republican nominee challenging for Matheson's seat this year.

"According to Matheson's camp it appears (Republicans) want to blow up UT with nuclear weapons," Philpot tweeted Monday, linking to the website.

During a telephone interview, Philpot said he personally would be against future testing, citing a 2007 report that said the U.S. nuclear stockpile was safe and would remain effective, but said Matheson is using the issue to paint Lee and Bridgewater as something they aren't.

"It sounds to me that he's hyping undeveloped ideas for his own political purposes," Philpot said.

The two other candidates for Utah's 2nd district also said they were against further testing.

Independent Dave Glissmeyer said he would support testing of something to improve the accuracy or range of weapons, but not the nuclear weapons themselves, adding that it would be a double-standard to test nukes while asking other countries to abstain.

"I do not see how more nuclear explosions make us 'safer,'" Glissmeyer said in an e-mail. "Any rational person knows that there are enough nuclear weapons in current stockpiles to obliterate the entire planet. Citizens in Utah have suffered enough already."

Constitution Party candidate Randall Hinton said reports are that the current stockpile is fine and technology should be able to produce sufficient testing through simulations. He said the entire issue would be moot if the government turned over most of its lands, as is part of his greater campaign.

"They wouldn't have the land to do the testing," he said.