Yucca Mountain breakdown in Senate?

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August 2002

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Yucca Mountain breakdown in Senate?

Yucca Mountain breakdown in Senate?
On July 9, the U.S. Senate approved plans to create a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

According to the New York Times, the Bush administration's plan for Yucca Mountain includes storing up to 77,000 tons of nuclear waste from over 100 civilian and government-owned reactors in the next 25 years. The site would open in 2010.

But Nevada's Senator Harry Reid says he has not given up the fight just yet. Reid plans to block construction of the site through regulatory, judicial, and financial channels. Reid chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. On July 22, that committee voted to provide only two-thirds the funding requested by the Bush administration for preliminary work on the Yucca site. Additionally, the state of Nevada has filed a lawsuit to prevent designation of the site.

On June 14, an earthquake measuring 4.4 on the Richter scale shook Nevada. The quake's epicenter was only 15 miles from the planned repository. Reid warned fellow members of Congress that "Yucca Mountain is a region of frequent earthquake activity." He also spoke of the threat transporting waste poses, calling truck- or train-loads of nuclear waste "mobile Chernobyls."

"There is no need to rush to build a nuclear repository when there are so many unanswered questions about safety and security," said Reid, noting that even the chairperson of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreed with him on this point.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration announced cuts to the cleanup of 33 Superfund toxic waste sites, due to lack of funding. Some sites' funding will be reduced to zero, halting current cleanup progress. The Superfund was designed to pay for toxic site cleanup by taxing the industries that pollute. Because Congress failed to reauthorize these taxes, the fund is now insufficient to fulfill its original goals.—Tara Dix

For previous coverage see: http://salt.claretianpubs.org/washweek/2002/07/is0207c.html

For more information see:
8th Day Center for Justice
Hardened On Site Storage alternative to Yucca Mountain
Atomic Road Show

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