Presidential Hopeful Rubio Backs Yucca Mountain

Republican Presidential hopeful Marco Rubio voiced his support for opening Yucca Mountain, according to reports in the Greenville News last weekend. The Florida Senator was in South Carolina over the weekend campaigning for the Republican nomination when local reporters asked him his thoughts on Yucca Mountain. Rubio said that the United States has spent so much time and money on the project that it represents the country’s best option for safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel. “The bottom line is we, today, including here in South Carolina, are holding onto nuclear material in areas that were supposed to be temporary areas,” Rubio told local reporters. “So you do need a permanent, central depository for it. Yucca Mountain is the place that’s gotten the money, and it was chosen years ago. So unless someone can identify a better project, that’s the one we should move forward on.” The Obama Administration shuttered the Yucca Mountain project in 2010 after deeming the site “unworkable” due to a lack of consent from the state of Nevada.