Thought you’d heard the last of plans to license Yucca Mountain? As the delegation is fond of saying, you can never be too cautious when it comes to efforts to restart the nuclear waste debate. And this week in Congress, they did just that — bring up Yucca once again.
The News of the Week: Yucca hearing
It’s been six years since the House of Representatives passed a bill to use the empty nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, the most recent attempt to store the nation’s nuclear waste in the desert 100 miles from Las Vegas.
The project has been opposed by generations of Nevada electeds on both sides of the aisle, and after that bill died in the Senate six years ago, then-President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden have committed to not fund the project.
But that doesn’t mean other members of Congress are happy about it.
In a Wednesday hearing on the management of spent nuclear fuel in the House Energy & Commerce Committee — no Nevadans are members — leaders took turns lamenting that the Yucca site, first chosen as the sole site in 1987 and approved for funding in 2002, still houses no nuclear waste due to the power of multiple generations of Nevada politicians.
“Opposition is not safety related or technical,” said Energy & Commerce chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). “It’s political. Opposition from states like Nevada in particular to this program has inhibited congressional appropriations and driven the executive branch to dismantle what had been an otherwise technically successful program.”
Her frustration with “states like Nevada” — the only state federally designated to house a long-term nuclear waste site — extended to subcommittee chair Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC), who said, “Unfortunately, politics obstructed the bill.”
The hearing comes as Congress considers what to do with spent nuclear fuel in the wake of the appropriation of funds for domestic uranium production and new reactors. Currently, nuclear waste is stored on-site at plants — but recent congressional action to promote uranium enrichment has restarted conversations of what to do with the requisite waste.
True as the implication of political mischief may be — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was famously able to kill the project for years — Nevada is as politically relevant as ever. A swing state in the presidential race with a toss-up Senate contest and three competitive House races, high-level politicians, including Biden and Trump, have seen the value in not being Nevada’s nuclear villain.
Meanwhile, ranking member Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) told E&E News she wants to see licensing procedures at Yucca restarted. Democrats in recent years have favored the consent-based approach promoted by the Nevada delegation, which would require state, local and tribal governments to consent to the use of any long-term nuclear storage site.
That’s the approach the Biden administration has adopted as well — though they’ve yet to find any willing takers.
The Nevada Angle
Nevada delegation members said they don’t expect any legislation to follow the subcommittee hearing — neither Duncan nor McMorris Rodgers introduced any bills or suggested they would.
“[They’re] just airing grievances,” Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) said. “But, that’s what we’re always prepared for — there’s many people around this country who would love to send nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain.”
Lee noted that the Biden administration committed in 2021 to oppose the use of Yucca as a long-term storage site, and has subsequently not included it in any budget request — and Congress had left the issue as well. Prior to him, Trump, who put out three budgets including Yucca funding, reversed course in 2020 — when he was up for re-election.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) was more succinct — posting a screengrab of an E&E News article on the hearing asking about the return of Yucca with a one-word…
This article was originally published by a thenevadaindependent.com . Read the Original article here. .