Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) issued a fist-pumping press release lauding the Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee for not funding the Energy Department’s application to license Yucca Mountain as a permanent nuclear-waste repository in 2018.
The bill, which has yet to be released publicly, “does not include the $120 million requested by the Department of Energy (DOE) to revive Yucca Mountain,” Heller wrote in a press release posted on his website Tuesday after the Senate appropriations energy and water development subcommittee approved its recommended fiscal 2018 DOE budget.
“This is a positive first step in a long fight to ensure that Yucca Mountain remains dead,” Heller said in the release. “I will continue to stand with the State of Nevada every step of the way and reiterate to this administration and to my colleagues in Congress: Nevada will not serve as the nation’s nuclear waste dump.”
The subcommittee distributed copies of its 2018 energy and water spending bill to senators Tuesday after a brief markup, but the text of the proposal — and the detailed spending report that accompanies it — were not scheduled to be released until after the full Senate Appropriations Committee votes on the legislation this morning.
What is known so far, based on draft legislation that leaked ahead of Tuesday’s markup, is that the measure would approve only consent-based interim storage sites for nuclear waste.
Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has long been a proponent of consolidated interim storage, which he contends is the quickest, cheapest way to get spent nuclear fuel securely away from the power plants that created it.
The Senate Appropriations Committee is set to mark up its version of DOE’s budget a little over a week after its House counterpart agreed to fund Yucca in fiscal 2018 at $120 million. The next budget year begins Oct. 1.
Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) on Wednesday promised amendments to strip out the Yucca funding from the House bill.
Drafting amendments to fight Yucca Mountain funding in the House appropriations bill & stop this unworkable project.
— Dina Titus (@repdinatitus) July 19, 2017
The House’s version of DOE’s 2018 budget will be considered on the floor next week as part of a so-called “minibus” appropriations package that also includes funding bills for several other federal agencies, a House aide said Wednesday.
