Members of Congress representing states that are home to Department of Energy facilities with radioactive waste on Ffriday urged the Trump administration to rethink its plan not to request funding for the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada.
“It is disappointing to see Yucca Mountain continued to be used as a political pawn,” Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose 4th Congressional District covers the Hanford Site, said in prepared comments. “With 56 million gallons of nuclear waste at the Hanford Site alone, no district in the United States is more dependent on Yucca Mountain than Washington’s 4th. The federal government’s commitment to the cleanup at Hanford relies on a permanent waste repository, and it is important to note that this is simply the law of the land.”
Newhouse was referring to the 1987 amendment to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which directed the Energy Department to dispose of the nation’s stock of radioactive waste on the federal property about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The White House is scheduled today to release its budget plan for fiscal 2021, which begins Oct. 1. The Office of Management and Budget on Thursday confirmed it would not ask Congress for appropriations to resume licensing of the disposal facility. That announcement – following funding requests for fiscal 2018, 2019, and 2020, all rejected on Capitol Hill – came less than an hour after President Donald Trump tweeted that his administration “is committed to exploring innovative approaches” for radioactive waste disposal.
“I will continue to engage with the Trump Administration on why Yucca Mountain is important to South Carolina communities and the 38 other states where nuclear waste sits idle – states where money has been collected for years to establish the repository,” Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) said in a statement.
South Carolina is home to DOE’s Savannah River Site, along with 4,500 tons of spent reactor fuel generated by nuclear power plants, according to the Duncan press release.
