The proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada could safely store spent fuel long after its doors close, federal nuclear regulators said.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined that Yucca “meets the requirements” for long-term storage.
However, the finding does not amount to authorizing licensing and construction. That would come only after the NRC reviews an Energy Department safety evaluation report, but the commission says it doesn’t have enough money to complete that process.
House Republicans, who have tried to send more money to the NRC to finish the review, cheered the report Thursday.
“Science, not politics, should determine Yucca’s course, and this report confirms that Yucca Mountain has met the safety requirements,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich.
President Obama, with the backing of Yucca opponent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pulled the plug on NRC reviews of the Energy Department application in 2010. House Republicans called the move illegal, as federal law requires the NRC to evaluate whether Yucca can be used as a permanent dump. A federal appeals court agreed in August 2013 when it ordered NRC to resume reviewing the application.
But Yucca is controversial for Nevada politicians. Even Dean Heller, the state’s Republican senator, vowed to block Yucca.
“Wasting more taxpayer dollars on additional studies to conclude what Nevadans already know: Storing our country’s nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain site is wrong and fiscally irresponsible,” he said.
House Republicans could try once again to send more money to NRC to finish Yucca if the Senate flips to Republican control in November. But a GOP majority would be slim and unlikely to secure enough votes to quash a Democratic minority led by Reid, who has made killing Yucca one of his primary political goals.
“Yucca Mountain is all through,” Reid told reporters last month. “As long as I’m around, there’s no Yucca Mountain.”
