I am proud that after over two decades of fighting the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, the project is finally being terminated. 

The proposal to dump nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain threatened the health and safety of Nevadans and people across our nation. Yucca Mountain, which is 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is simply not a safe or secure site to store nuclear waste. 

Terminating the Dump

With the election of President Barack Obama, the fate of the Yucca Mountain project has never been clearer. The President and his Administration are following through on his promise to end Yucca Mountain.

In his Fiscal Year 2010 budget, President Obama delivered the lowest funding level yet for the project, which eliminates all work on the design, construction and transportation infrastructure for the dump. More importantly, the President’s budget includes language that terminates the Yucca Mountain project.

During his confirmation hearing and in other testimony before Senate and House committees, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu also stated that Yucca Mountain was no longer an option, and that the Department of Energy (DOE) should be looking for other solutions. 

Finding Alternatives to a Flawed Proposal

I have long worked with the Nevada delegation and other Nevada leaders to put a stop to this flawed plan.

In 1982, the United States Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act instructing the DOE to identify possible sites to build and operate an underground disposal facility for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel. In 1984 the DOE chose ten sites to study as potential locations, but after only three years, Congress prematurely instructed the DOE to study only Yucca Mountain. In 2002, Congress recklessly approved President Bush’s decision that Yucca Mountain was suitable for nuclear waste.

In 2008, the DOE announced that it was raising Yucca Mountain’s estimated price tag from $57.5 billion to over $96 billion. Beyond its bloated budget, the Yucca Mountain project faced a laundry list of scientific, technical, public health, legal, and safety problems. The skyrocketing price tag, the steadfast opposition of Nevadans and their congressional delegation, and the growing understanding that Yucca was a mortally flawed proposal have led to the project’s demise.

The time is long overdue for America to find a new approach for solving the nation’s nuclear waste problem. That is why I was joined by Senator John Ensign in proposing the creation of a Blue Ribbon Commission of experts to make credible, scientifically sound recommendations for a new approach to nuclear waste.

I am pleased that President Obama, Secretary Chu, and other Congressional leaders agree with this approach and are supporting the formation of a Blue Ribbon Commission. As Secretary Chu works to form the Commission, I will ensure that Nevada’s health and safety are never again threatened by nuclear waste.

Yucca Mountain License Application

In June 2008, under the previous Administration, the Department of Energy submitted an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeking authorization to construct the dump at Yucca Mountain. This application was based on unsound scientific information and incomplete data, which contained designs that were only 35% complete. In May 2009, Nevada was handed a victory when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that the majority, 299 out of 318, of objections (“contentions”) raised by the state and Nevada and California counties would be heard. I will work to ensure that the state and affected units of local government have adequate resources to continue their efforts to show exactly why Yucca Mountain should never have been proposed in the first place.

For Students

The Yucca Mountain project continues to be to elicit numerous questions from interested students across the United States. The following links below might be helpful for your assignments.