Officials from the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce are headed to Washington, D.C., next week to visit with Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.): architect of a bill that would help clear the way for the federal government to turn Yucca Mountain in Nevada into a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste.
The Las Vegas Chamber — like most Nevada organizations up to and including the state government — vehemently opposes Yucca Mountain, or any other sort of nuclear-waste storage in the state. The chamber’s annual lobbying trip was reported by the editorial board of the local Las Vegas Sun, which also opposes Yucca.
In a Tuesday editorial, the newspaper called the Donald Trump administration’s drive to revive the Energy Department’s license application to construct and operate Yucca a plan “to turn our backyard into the nation’s dumping ground for high-level radioactive material.”
The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the upcoming trip.
The chamber will bring a delegation of more than 100 people, the Sun said.
Shimkus’ bill, the roughly 50-page Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017, tackles a number of legislative shortcomings that, Yucca proponents say, stand in the way of building the repository. Among other things, the bill would modify the decades-old Nuclear Waste Policy Act to broadly increase the federal government’s powers at Yucca, including its ability to use groundwater at the site and regulate air quality there.
The legislation passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee with bipartisan support and now awaits a vote on the House floor. A House source said lawmakers are working to bring the measure for a vote before Congress’ annual winter-holiday recess.
