Sen. Dean Heller says the nation needs a program to dispose of and store nuclear fuel and radioactive waste but Yucca Mountain isn’t the answer.
In a letter to House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee chairman John Shimkus, the Nevada Republican urged him not to try to revive the defunct Yucca Mountain repository project. Shimkus is holding hearings focused on doing just that.
“I fully appreciate the importance to Illinois, which is home to more nuclear power plants than any other state in the nation, that progress is made,” he said. “With that said, that solution is not forcing the burden on Nevada, a state that has never had a nuclear power plant.”
Heller pointed out the Department of Energy last year began an initiative to find communities willing to host a waste storage and disposal facility. He said that program is “the only viable long-term solution to our nation’s nuclear waste problem.”
He urged Shimkus and his subcommittee to focus their efforts on that process.