Lawmakers urge Energy Dept. to halt Yucca shutdown

Ninety-one lawmakers, mostly
Republicans, are urging Energy Secretary Steven Chu to hold off on closing the
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.

Sixty-seven representatives
and 24 senators — led by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Doc Hastings
(R-Wash.) — argue the department “has overstepped its bounds and has ignored
congressional intent without peer review or proper scientific documentation in
its actions regarding Yucca Mountain,” according to a letter sent to Chu
Tuesday.

{mosads}They are asking the
department to halt the Yucca site’s shuttering until a pending federal lawsuit
filed by the states of Washington and South Carolina, among others, has been
decided. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
on June 29 also denied the department’s move to withdraw the licensing
application for the Yucca site. 

This is a “clear statement
that the Department does not have the authority under the Nuclear Waste Policy
Act to unilaterally terminate Yucca Mountain,” the lawmakers wrote.

Murray is one of 12 Democrats
who signed on to the letter — most, if not all, share her concern about waste
sitting at sites in their states not being shipped to the Yucca repository.
This includes Washington’s Hanford nuclear production complex, which has more
than 50 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste stored in more than 170
underground tanks. The Hanford plant and Aiken County, S.C., are also suing the
department to keep the repository open.

“The primary reason why Sen.
Murray is focused on this issue so much for years is that at the Hanford site
they’ve been packaging the waste to be shipped to Yucca,” a Murray spokesman
said. “The government has spent a lot of money researching this and for many
years this has been scientifically recognized as the best site.”

Nevada lawmakers — including
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) — have for years fought to keep the
repository from being built in their state.

Congress approved the site as
the nation’s nuclear waste storage site in 1982. But making good on a campaign
pledge by President Barack Obama, the Energy Department in February announced
it was looking at other options to store waste. This includes more safely
storing waste at existing nuclear plants.

Lawmakers would need to find hundreds of millions of dollars to
have the department continue its application process for the repository, while
Obama’s budget request for fiscal year 2011 does not include any money for that
purpose.