U.S. Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) voiced opposition on Monday to draft legislation that would revive plans for a nuclear waste storage site at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain ahead of a planned House subcommittee hearing on the measure on Wednesday.
The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment is slated to hold a hearing today on draft legislation, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act, introduced by U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL). The draft legislation would amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 to advance a monitored retrievable storage site for high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
In a letter to Shimkus, the chairman of the subcommittee, Heller voiced strong opposition to the defunct Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. Heller also urged Shimkus to work with him on viable solutions to the nation’s nuclear waste storage problems.
While acknowledging their disagreement on the issue of Yucca Mountain, Heller said, “ … we are in agreement that it is in the best interest of our nation that a program to dispose and store used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from civilian nuclear power generation, defense, national security and other activities is implemented as soon as possible,” Heller said.
Heller voiced concern that Shimkus’ proposed legislation would not only significantly harm the state of Nevada but would infringe upon states’ rights concerning air and water permitting authority.
“In addition, the benefits provided to host communities are nothing more than unenforceable and illusory promises,” Heller said. “Moreover, your legislation ignores the national security risk posed by thousands of nuclear waste shipments to Yucca Mountain.”
Heller continued that he has long been ready to partner on viable solutions that provide consent-based storage for spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste — but those solutions should not force that burden onto Nevada, a state that has never had a nuclear power plant.
“Rather, identifying communities willing to host a long-term repository instead of forcing it upon states that have outright opposed such a site, is the only viable long-term solution to our nation’s nuclear waste problem,” Heller said. “It is in the best interest of our nation that (Shimkus’) subcommittee, and the Congress as a whole, focus on that consent-based process as opposed to the draft legislation that stands before it today.”
Until Congress moves past the Yucca Mountain proposal, Heller concluded, the nation cannot move forward with viable, sustainable solutions for spent nuclear fuel and defense high-level waste.