Nevada’s lone GOP representative predicted the House will pass a major nuclear-waste policy bill before the holiday shopping season starts, and the Las Vegas Sun tore the bill’s sponsor a new one on its Sunday editorial page.
At a Friday breakfast sponsored by the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) said the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017 could pass the lower chamber ahead of Thanksgiving. according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. However, he forecast the Senate’s Republican leadership would sit on the bill until after the 2018 election in order to avoid harming Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.).
The Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017 would smooth the way for the federal government to build a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev. Nevada’s state government and substantially its entire congressional delegation oppose the plan.
Amodei wants the Department of Energy to develop Yucca Mountain as a nuclear research facility, rather than a disposal site.
On Monday, an Amodei spokesperson walked back the congressman’s remarks.
“While Rep. [John] Shimkus [(R-Ill.)] has made comments recently that there could possibly be a vote on this in the coming weeks, we have not heard anything further from the Energy and Commerce Committee at this point,” Amodei’s spokesperson said by email.
Shimkus is the chief sponsor of the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017. Just days before Amodei spoke in Las Vegas, Shimkus spoke at a meeting of the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce, which represents localities hundreds of miles west of Las Vegas and Yucca Mountain.
The invitation earned the Reno-Sparks Chamber a scathing rebuke from the militantly anti-Yucca Las Vegas Sun newspaper, which in a no-holds-barred editorial published Sunday reviled Shimkus as the “dark force” behind Yucca and a “puppet” of the nuclear industry.
Shimkus’ bill is as close to a vote on the House floor as ever, though none had been scheduled Monday. The measure easily passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee in June with bipartisan approval. Only four panel members voted against the bill.
At deadline Monday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, the committee had not released its report on Shimkus’ legislation, which would provide a plain-language summary of the 45-page bill’s legislative proposals.
