Gary Martin reports that Yucca Mountain continues to be considered by a Republican lawmaker on a key congressional panel to be part of a comprehensive solution to the continuing problem of storing nuclear waste generated by power plants.
But some Nevada officials say it will take more than money to bring the designated facility north of Las Vegas into compliance to store waste that is being temporarily held at plants across the country. Earlier this month, U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on environment, said that the federal government failure to take possession of spent nuclear fuel has cost taxpayers $30 billion.
Following a tour of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Diego, Shimkus, whose subommittee overseas nuclear waste issues, said he planned to act during this Congress to resolve the problem. He said that he would push for a comprehensive solution to nuclear-waste management that would move spent nuclear fuel out of these communities in a timely manner and toward permanent disposal at Yucca Mountain, as decided by the federal government 30 years ago.
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and the state two U.S. Sens., Dean Heller and Catherine Cortez Masto, and U.S. Reps. Dina Titus, Ruben Kihuen and Jacky Rosen all oppose efforts to bring nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, which is located just 90 miles north of Las Vegas.
U.S. taxpayers spent $15 billion on the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository before former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., enlisted the help of then-President Barack Obama to kill the project.
Cortez Masto, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said efforts to restart the project would be futile because of legal challenges, public opposition and cost.
It will be a further waste of dollars if they are going to try to go down the path of opening Yucca Mountain, which is a hole in the ground, she told the Review-Journal.
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