Lawmakers urge Yucca action

Nevada delegates say House should reconsider plan

WASHINGTON — House lawmakers with nuclear power plants in their congressional districts on Monday decried federal failure to license and construct a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain as two Nevada congresswomen argued against storing waste in the state.

“The majority of Nevadans agree that storing nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain is not a viable or sustainable solution,” said Rep. Jacky Rosen, D-nev., in a letter to House and Senate appropriators urging them not to include funds for the project in an upcoming spending bill.

But Rep. John Shimkus, R-ill., led a bipartisan group of lawmakers giving House floor speeches Monday about their concern over stockpiles of nuclear waste building up in states because of federal inaction.

Federal taxpayers face a liability because of the government’s failure to construct and safely dispose of nuclear waste, as required by law, the lawmakers said. Shimkus has a bill that would streamline the licensing of the Yucca Mountain facility, which is needed to begin construction on the facility located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Rep. Dina Titus, D-nev., spoke before the lawmakers and reiterated the opposition in Nevada to storing nuclear waste produced in other states.

“Nevada is not a wasteland,” Titus said from the floor.

Titus has filed a bill that would require the federal government to get consent from states and local communities as a prerequisite to building a nuclear waste facility.

Yucca Mountain was designated by Congress as the national repository for nuclear waste in 1987. The Department of Energy spent $15 billion to study the site and applied for a license to construct a repository.

But President Barack Obama stopped funding for the licensing application in 2011.

President Donald Trump is seeking to restart the licensing process and included $120 million for it in the DOE budget.

Shimkus is the author of a bill that would authorize spending to restart the process. The bill has 109 House co-sponsors, both Republicans and Democrats, and has been passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on a 49-4 vote. It must still be approved by the full House.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@ reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.