The Nevada Senate got another would-be Biden administration official to pledge no funding for Yucca Mountain on Wednesday during the confirmation hearing for Neera Tanden to be the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Tanden, former president of the Center for American Progress, told Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) during the hearing that she would work with the Nevada delegation to find “alternative uses” for the Yucca Mountain site. Rosen co-sponsored a 2019 bill that would have prevented the Department of Energy from licensing the site as a nuclear waste repository and studied alternative uses for the site.
Tanden also told Rosen that her agency would not greenlight funding for the Yucca Mountain project and noted that President Biden had made a similar commitment.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) pursued the same line of questioning at Energy Secretary nominee Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s (D) Jan. 27 confirmation hearing. Granholm affirmed the administration’s opposition to Yucca Mountain and told Cortez Masto that the Biden DOE would work with Congress to designate an alternative site for the permanent storage of nuclear waste.
At deadline, the Biden administration had yet to announce where, if at all, nuclear fits into its energy and climate agendas. However, the administration could “perhaps” undertake a review of nuclear energy, Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce committee’s environment subcommittee, told RadWaste Monitor this week.
