Senate to call Reid's bluff on closing Yucca nuke dump

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who has kept Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump closed for business, is facing the first solid threat on his iron grip as the new GOP majority moves to finally open the facility.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, the new Republican chairman of the subcommittee that oversees spending on the facility, said that he is working up a plan that could unlock the gates of Yucca and pour in waste mostly from power plants before there is a major disaster from overloaded temporary dumps at the plants.