Republican leaders have begun a formal inquiry into the Obama administration’s decision to halt development of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
United States Geological Survey Japan’s crisis has revived interest in Yucca Mountain as a potential nuclear waste repository.The investigation is led by Fred Upton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who on Thursday demanded documents and written answers from Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, detailing their agencies’ decision-making process in moving to block construction of the controversial project.
The investigation was criticized by Representative Shelley Berkley, Democrat of Nevada, who took to the House floor on Friday to denounce the inquiry as a “political stunt.”
Those pushing this review are lying about the dump’s safety,” The Hill quoted Ms. Berkley as saying. “They know Yucca Mountain is smack in the middle of an earthquake zone. There’s volcanic activity. There’s groundwater issues. Have we learned nothing about what’s happening
now in Japan?”
In a statement, Mr. Upton and Fred Shimkus, chairman of the newly formed Environment and Economy
subcommittee, said there was “no scientific or technical basis” for the administration’s move to withdraw a construction application for the Yucca project.
“Despite the scientific community’s seal of approval, extensive bipartisan collaboration, as well as nearly three decades and billions of taxpayer dollars spent, this administration has recklessly sought to pull the plug on the Yucca repository without even the sensibility of offering a viable alternative,” the congressmen said.
Yucca Mountain was identified by Congress as its first choice for a nuclear waste repository in the 1980s, but local opposition and questions over the site’s suitability for long-term storage have long stalled its development.
As a nuclear crisis unfolds in Japan, where spent reactor fuel stored inside reactors appears to have overheated and leaked radioactive material, enthusiasm has grown in Congress for finding a long-term solution for the growing stockpiles of nuclear waste in the United States.
But the push to renew construction on Yucca Mountain has met with staunch resistance from the Obama administration, which proposed eliminating the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s funds for the project in its 2012 budget.
A spending bill approved by the House, meanwhile, would bar the nuclear commission from halting its licensing review for Yucca Mountain “without due cause” and block the agency from using budgeted funds to pay termination costs associated with shutting down the project.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada slammed that proposal when it was passed by a House committee in February. “Let me be clear,” he told The Las Vegas Sun. “Any attempt to restart the Yucca Mountain project will not happen on my watch as Senate majority leader.”
“If House Republicans are genuinely interested in fiscal responsibility, they should stop trying to waste more taxpayer money on an irretrievably bad project,” he said.