Nevada Democrats failed Wednesday night to remove language from the House fiscal 2018 spending bill that would prohibit the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in their state from being closed.

“Killing the project at this point is short-sighted,” said Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, chairman of the Appropriations Committee’s energy panel. Once the nuclear waste facility’s license application is finished, Congress will have a chance to decide “on whether to proceed” with the construction of the repository, he added.