Nevada lawmakers crept closer to approving their latest cry of opposition to the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository Monday by advancing a resolution condemning the controversial facility to the floor of the State Assembly.
Assembly Joint Resolution No. 10 “protests in the strongest possible terms, any attempt by the United States Congress to resurrect the dangerous and ill-conceived repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain,” according to the text of the measure posted online. If passed by both chambers, the resolution would become the state Legislature’s official position.
The resolution as passed by the State Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee had not been scheduled for a vote in the full chamber at press time for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. The Nevada Legislature is scheduled to be in session through June 5.
Twenty-five assembly members and nine state senators introduced the resolution on March 15, a day before President Donald Trump publicly released a budget blueprint that confirmed long-circulating rumors that his administration planned to reactivate the government’s license application to store waste at Yucca Mountain — a process the Obama administration curtailed in 2010.
The Trump administration has proposed spending $120 million in fiscal 2018 for interim storage of nuclear waste and for Yucca licensing with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Nevada, as it has since Congress designated Yucca Mountain as the sole disposal site for U.S. high-level waste in 1987, opposes any policy to bring such material into the state. Besides the Legislature, Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) and state Attorney General Adam Laxalt have both vowed to fight Trump’s proposal.
