Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) is seeking details about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s work on licensing Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a permanent nuclear waste repository.
In a Friday letter to NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki, Nevada’s junior senator said she worries the commission is laying groundwork to work on the Department of Energy’s decade-old Yucca license application, even though Congress has not funded the proceeding at DOE or the NRC.
“Even though Congress has yet to appropriate any funds to the NRC related to Yucca Mountain, I am concerned the NRC is already moving in a direction to use allocated funds for a purpose that has not yet been authorized,” Cortez Masto wrote.
Cortez Masto cited letters and memorandums Svinicki wrote to federal and state officials last year, in which the NRC chief described fact-finding about potential adjudication sites in Nevada.
The senator asked Svinicki to describe these efforts in more detail, and to describe the commission’s consideration of adjudication sites outside of Nevada, including at the NRC’s Rockville, Md., headquarters. Without setting a date by which she would like a reply from Svinicki, Cortez Masto said she would appreciate a “prompt” response from NRC.
If DOE ever resumes its application to store spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, as the Donald Trump administration wishes, the NRC will judge the application in what experts estimate will be a two- to five-year process. Nevada has already lodged hundreds of technical challenges to DOE’s application.
This year, the NRC has requested about $48 million to prepare to judge DOE’s Yucca license application. Since President Donald Trump has been in office, the House has been willing to fund DOE and NRC work on the Yucca license, while the Senate has not. Nevada’s entire congressional delegation opposes storing waste at the site.
