Heller seeks clarity on DOE proposal to reclassify certain nuclear waste

U.S. Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), concerned that the Trump administration is reviving a long-delayed plan to store nuclear waste at his home state’s Yucca Mountain, wants U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry to explain his department’s proposed reclassification of certain radioactive waste.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Oct. 4 opened a 60-day comment period in an effort to interpret the term “high-level radioactive waste,” which currently includes all such waste created as a byproduct of used nuclear fuel. Sen. Heller now wants clarity on DOE’s proposed interpretation of that term.

“As someone who has worked repeatedly with the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senate leadership to ensure that not a single dollar goes toward funding the failed Yucca Mountain project, I am troubled by any action, such as the reclassification of high-level nuclear waste, that could potentially be undertaken to disrupt or circumvent the restrictions on Yucca Mountain that I marshaled into law,” the senator wrote.

Sen. Heller noted that as Nevada’s senior senator – whose leadership thus far has kept the Yucca Mountain project from moving ahead – that it’s critical he ensure that DOE’s proposed redefinition of high-level nuclear waste “is not part of a larger ploy to defeat the will of Congress and the clear and consistent opposition of the State of Nevada.”

State residents firmly oppose the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, according to Sen. Heller’s letter, in which he pointed out that Nevada doesn’t have a single nuclear power plant and “should not have to shoulder the entire nation’s nuclear waste burden.”

He suggested that Secretary Perry consider pursuing a consent-based approach, such as that proposed in the bipartisan Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act, S. 95, which the lawmaker introduced on Jan. 11, 2017 with original cosponsor U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV).

S. 95 would require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to obtain the consent of affected state and local governments before authorizing the construction of a nuclear waste facility, according to an Oct. 5 statement released by Sen. Heller’s office.

“No community, especially not one in Nevada, should be forced to store nuclear waste against its will,” the senator wrote Perry. “I will not let Nevada be overrun by states that want to move the nuclear waste they created out of their backyards and into ours.”

Sen. Heller requested that Secretary Perry answer several questions by Oct. 19, including: how much high-level radioactive waste would be reclassified as “non-high-level waste” if DOE’s proposal is adopted; where such reclassified waste is currently located and if DOE intends to bring any of it to Nevada; and how the reclassification of waste could affect current and proposed waste streams.