March 17, 2014

REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES HIGHLIGHT YUCCA OPPOSITION

By ExchangeMonitor

At a debate in Las Vegas Tuesday, several Republican presidential candidates voiced support for the Obama Administration’s efforts to shut down development of the Yucca Mountain repository. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said he opposes developing a nuclear waste repository without support from the state. “The idea that 49 states can tell Nevada we want to give you our nuclear waste doesn’t make a lot of sense. I think the people of Nevada ought to have the final say as to whether they want that. And my guess is that for them to say yes to something like that someone is going to have to offer them a pretty good deal, as opposed to having the federal government jam it down their throat,” he said. Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that he agreed with Romney on the issue, and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) also spoke out against Yucca Mountain, noting that he had voted against the repository in Congress.

However, former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) did not rule out waste disposal at Yucca Mountain. “I think that it has to be looked at scientifically. But I think at some point we have to find a safe method of taking care of nuclear waste. And today, because this has been caught up in a political fight, we have small units of nuclear waste all over this country in a way that is vastly more dangerous to the United States than finding a method of keeping it in a very, very deep place that would be able to sustain 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 years of geological safety,” he said. He added, “Yucca Mountain certainly was picked by the scientific community as one of the safest places in the United States. It has always had very deep opposition here in Nevada. … But we have to find some method of finding a very geologically stable place. And most geologists believe that, in fact, Yucca Mountain is that.”

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