AMERICAN FORK — Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, continued his lobbying efforts against resumed nuclear testing in Nevada with an unlikely group — the tiny American Fork Chamber of Commerce.

Matheson, who is running against Republican John Swallow for the seat in Utah's 2nd Congressional District, which takes in a part of Utah County, said this week that he voted against refurbishing the Nevada test site and has introduced a bill in Congress designed to keep nuclear testing from resuming.

The federal government tested nuclear bombs in Nevada from the 1950s to 1992, telling folks who lived downwind of the test site — called downwinders in southern Utah — that it was safe. "The government lied to us," Matheson said.

Matheson's father, former Gov. Scott Matheson, died in 1990 of multiple myeloma, a form of cancer. He was 61. Matheson said he believes his father's death came from exposure to radiation from atomic tests.

Nuclear fallout, particularly Iodine-131, has been found not only in southern Utah and Arizona but also in northern Utah and as far away as Iowa and New York, according to a 1997 study by the National Cancer Institute.

Nuclear weapons in the past were for defensive purposes, he said. Now the government wants to test two nuclear bombs for offensive use — the so-called bunker-buster bombs for attacking terrorists hiding deep in natural underground fissures and caves and a "mini-nuke," a bomb that's about a third the size of the weapon that flattened Hiroshima during World War II.

The Bush administration has budgeted millions of dollars to design the bombs and appropriated $25 million in the 2004 federal budget to improve the Nevada test site. Yet officials say they have no plans to test the new weapons.

Matheson hopes the testing can be simulated on a computer but asserts the weapons shouldn't be used at all. Using nuclear weapons could have two kinds of fallout, he said. The kind that kills people and the kinds that turns the hearts and minds of other nations against the United States.

The top weapon against terrorists is intelligence, not bombs, he said. Homeland security is the nation's No. 1 priority but is sluggish, Matheson said. The nation's 15 spy agencies have a history of not communicating. That's being fixed, but it also needs to work down to the local police level, he said.

When a police officer pulls over a motorist, he needs to be able to look on his patrol car computer to see if the driver is a known terrorist, he said.

After the attack on Sept. 11, 2001, the government improved security at airports and on airliners, but the next attack likely won't involve the airlines, he said. A threat assessment could help pick out areas that need strengthening.

"We don't want to trample all over our civil liberties," Matheson said.

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