Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who has pledged to stop the Department of Energy from building a permanent nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain in his state, is still preventing the White House from filling a key nuclear regulatory in the U.S. government, Politico reported last week.
The mostly silent blockade against Annie Caputo, a Republican whom President Donald Trump nominated for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission seat eight months ago, pressed on as Heller prepared himself for a primary challenge from perennial campaigner Danny Tarkanian, who has painted the senior senator from the Silver State as an insufficiently conservative creature of Washington.
In response, Heller has attempted to color Tarkanian as pro-Yucca, local Nevada television media reported. Tarkanian, when he has staked out a public position at all, has said he favors turning the Nye County, Nev., site into a nuclear research and development center: essentially the same position held by the sole GOP member of Nevada’s House delegation, Rep. Mark Amodei.
Heller’s office did not reply to a request for comment.
All three Trump administration nominees to fill out the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — Caputo, David Wright, and current Commissioner Jeff Baran — have been approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Also are still waiting for floor votes from the full Senate.
Senators sometimes make their opposition to administration nominees public by sending written objections to the majority leader’s office, which then must by law be published in the congressional record. That law does not apply when senators announce their objections to the leader in person or over the phone.
Meanwhile, the Nevada GOP primary for Heller’s Senate seat is scheduled for June 12. Vetted polls in the race were scarce at deadline Sunday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, but Real Clear Politics cited two surveys from 2017 that put Tarkanian ahead of Heller by a bit more than a polling error.
