Even the thought of resuming nuclear testing is enough to raise the hackles of people living in Nevada, Utah and Idaho, and for good reason. Untold numbers of people living in those states died or were sickened by four decades of testing at the Nevada Test Site between 1951 and 1992.

We simply cannot allow it to happen again.

But more testing seems to be the intent of the Bush administration, and only constant vigilance by Utah's congressional delegation and all of us who live downwind of the test site has a chance to stop it.

Widespread protests over the past 60 days halted the planned test of Divine Strake, a 700-ton conventional weapon that could have stirred up and disbursed radioactive dust left over from those Cold War-era nuclear tests. We may need to rally such a force again.

In the meantime, Congress would be foolish to grant the president's request for funds to ready the Nevada site for nuclear tests, although he denies he will ever order them.

It would be foolish because the National Nuclear Security Administration has a new big gun, the Reliable Replacement Warhead, and the Bush administration has dangerous plans for such weapons. Under Bush we no longer hoist the threat of nuclear weapons merely to deter other countries from launching them, as we did against the Soviet Union, as that country did against us. This administration appears to have few qualms about attacking enemy bunkers with small nuclear arms.

That policy shift is nothing short of a dare to our real and potential enemies, more of whom have nuclear capabilities than ever before and may be itching for an excuse to do their own testing.

Carrying out tests to update our nuclear arsenal would not only endanger the health of people who live in Nevada and surrounding states, but make the chilling possibility of a nuclear arms race and even nuclear war more likely.

Utah's Rep. Jim Matheson, whose father, former Gov. Scott Matheson, was a victim of the Nevada testing, has consistently opposed moves to resume Nevada tests. All our elected officials should stand firmly with him.

They must make no mistake. The threat is real and must be fought with vigor.