Lucas M Thomas

The Spectrum

Plans to store the country’s nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain were considered “dead” after then-President Obama cut off funding in 2010.

A change in the Oval Office could change all that.

In his proposed 2018 budget, unveiled in March, President Trump included $120 million to revive the nuclear waste site in the Nevada desert, reopening a decades-long battle that the Silver State's federal delegation has vowed to staunchly oppose.

There's already movement in Congress, with H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017, which would help resume the Yucca Mountain project, introduced in June in the House of Representatives.

"Nuclear waste stored at Yucca Mountain will threaten the safety of Nevadans in addition to putting millions of visitors at risk," Rep. Ruben Kihuen of Nevada's 4th Congressional District said. "There are plenty of ways to utilize the existing infrastructure at Yucca Mountain, however, funding a dead project and stuffing a mountain with nuclear waste is not the answer."

While Yucca Mountain has unified Nevada's federal delegation — even including Sens. Dean Heller, a Republican, and Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat — there are supporters of the project in the state legislature, including Assemblyman Chris Edwards, a Republican who represents a district that includes Mesquite.

“We’ve been dealing with atomic energy for over 70 years and for people to say we can’t handle this safely in the 21st century is just nonsense,” said Edwards, who was one of six assembly members who voted against a resolution during the 2017 session that opposed reopening Yucca Mountain. "We need to find out what can we use this for because we frankly have a multi-billion dollar asset sitting 100 miles north of Las Vegas and its sitting idle. Surely we can come up with a set of options for what can be done.”

This week, Nevada Reps. Kihuen, Dina Titus, Jacky Rosen — all Democrats — suffered a setback when their amendments to slash 2018 funding for Yucca Mountain from the House appropriations bill were defeated.

Republican Rep. Mark Amodei, the state's fourth congressman, has said he’s open to discussing the project but is against bringing unprocessed waste into Nevada.

Earlier this month, the Senate passed its version of the appropriations bill that did not include the $120 million allocated in Trump’s proposed budget, a decision Heller classified as “positive steps in a long fight to ensure Yucca Mountain remains dead.”

The disparities between the House and Senate likely means the issue will be headed to a conference committee for resolution.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017 was introduced in late June by Rep. John Shimkus, a Republican representing Illinois’ 15th Congressional District. Shimkus serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and chairs the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy.

Shimkus has long been a proponent of nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain and toured the facility in 2015. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, Illinois currently has more nuclear waste than any other state, holding 10,180 metric tons (13 percent) of the nation’s 78,590 tons of spent nuclear fuel. Nevada is one of 14 states in the country that does not have any spent nuclear fuel.

The bill sponsored by Shimkus, which would amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, identifies Yucca Mountain as the best place to store the country’s nuclear waste. The bill is cosponsored by 43 representatives — 32 Republicans and 11 Democrats —from 22 states. The Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the bill in a 49-4 vote last month.

The Yucca Mountain project appears to have more support in the House than in the Senate, where Heller said the bill would be “dead on arrival.”

“Republicans in the House should pay attention to the Senate and revisit their efforts to fund a dangerous and misguided project that is based on bad politics and even worse science,” Titus said in a statement on the Senate’s decision to exclude funding from the appropriations bill.

In addition to outspoken criticism of Yucca Mountain from Nevada’s federal delegation, Attorney General Adam Laxalt has vowed to “continue to battle the poster-child for federal overreach — a battle over an unwanted nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in our beloved Nevada.”

Gov. Brian Sandoval is also an outspoken critic of storing nuclear waste in Nevada. Sandoval sent a letter to Shimkus and subcommittee ranking member Paul Tonko in April before a subcommittee hearing on nuclear waste that reiterated the state’s official stance against the Yucca Mountain repository.

“The discussion draft that will serve as a focal point for this hearing is fundamentally flawed. While past federal legislation has unfairly and without scientific justification singled out Nevada as the only state where a proposed nuclear waste repository is being considered, the draft legislation before your committee goes much farther. It usurps Nevada’s jurisdiction over the state’s water resources, an unprecedented affront to all western states where water is a precious and scarce resource. Further, numerous provisions would truncate the final stages of the NRC licensing in ways that would limit Nevada’s ability to protect public health, safety and the environment. The transportation and benefits provisions are simply false promises that cannot be guaranteed or enforced,” Sandoval wrote.

“The main reasons the state is against this are the safety and environmental issues,” said Robert Halstead, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

The state, for example, has concerns about regularly shipping spent nuclear waste across Interstate 15 and near the Las Vegas Strip, one of the most popular tourist destinations in America. The possibility of seismic activity near Yucca Mountain also worries state officials.

Halstead contests that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s review of the Department of Energy’s application to construct a repository at Yucca Mountain, which was published in 2015, has been “misrepresented.”

The NRC concluded that “the DOE's license application met the regulatory requirements for the proposed repository, with two exceptions: DOE had not obtained certain land withdrawal and water rights necessary for construction and operation of the repository," according to its website.

Some take that to mean the site is ready to go — including Nye County Commission Chairman Dan Schinofen, who said he’d like to see more constructive dialogue about the possibilities of Yucca Mountain rather than unwavering opposition from the state.

“As far as the safety goes, the safety evaluations reports, the reports to the NRC staff, it said the science was sound,” Schinofen said. “I really think they’re preferring political science over nuclear science. I respect we can have a difference of opinion, but we can’t have different facts. And the facts that are in evidence now show that it can be operated and constructed safely.”

Finding a consensus on the facts, though, appears to be a prohibitive factor.

“The pro-Yucca Mountain public relations people and the people in Congress who want this to go forward have taken a lot of liberties in attributing finality to these NRC reports,” Halstead said.

The NRC review was ordered to resume in 2013 via a D.C. District Court of Appeals ruling even after the Obama administration’s efforts appeared to have halted the project. The state of Nevada submitted 218 contentions to the proceeding in 2009, but the 2013 decision forced the state to revamp its efforts.

“We never completely were convinced that the Yucca Mountain people were going to go away, even after Sen. Reid was able to reduce the funding and even after the Obama administration said, 'Look, the smart thing to do would be to walk away from Yucca Mountain.’ We never stopped doing our work ... we really reactivated our expert team after that court decision in 2013,” Halstead said.

As a result, the state is ready to submit upwards of 50 new contentions, many of which deal with groundwater issues at the site. The state also is at odds with DOE findings that radiation exposure for the first 10,000 years, and then up until 1 million years, would be below proposed limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“If you go issue-by-issue, DOE’s case is full of holes. Their assessment of the site is questionable,” Halstead said. “Our experts will provide a completely different review of what DOE has proposed.”

Halstead said that state findings indicate the 10,000-year standard could be exceeded within the first 700-900 years, and the million year standard could be exceeded within the first 2,000 years.

The conversation takes on a different tone inside Nevada’s rural counties, where jobs and the economy are often primary concerns for residents. Schinofen said the state should come forward and put its science up against the DOE's findings.

“If the state has other facts that show it can’t be (constructed safely), they should be clamoring to have the hearings to show it’s not safe, and the fact that they aren’t clamoring makes me wonder how secure they are in their position,” Schinofen said.

He added that Yucca Mountain would boost Nevada’s economy by bringing in valuable construction jobs and on-site jobs, as well as providing a rail line connecting the northern and southern parts of the state.

“We’re constantly reminded we don’t speak for the state. We’ve never tried to speak for the state; I speak for my county," Schinofen said. "So while we do have a seat at the table, because we’re the host county, we are often marginalized. I think that’s sad, I don’t know why we can’t all work together on a project the size of Hoover Dam."

He added, “I really think this is a political football more than anything.”

While Edwards said he understands the state's concerns with transporting high-level nuclear waste across I-15, the assemblyman suggested taking money allocated for the project and using it to construct an alternate delivery route.

“I look at a lot of statements that are made in public, I know that a lot of it is fear-mongering, a lot of it is propaganda, it’s inaccurate, it’s erroneous and people need to be smart about it,” Edwards said.

The battle over Yucca Mountain promises to be a lengthy one, but what was once considered a closed discussion is now very much alive.

In June, Energy Secretary Rick Perry backed the Yucca Mountain project, noting that "we can no longer kick the can down the road,” when it comes to finding a permanent storage facility for the country’s spent nuclear fuel.

“We have a moral and national security obligation to come up with a long-term solution,” Perry told members of the House.

In a similar Senate hearing, Cortez Masto questioned Perry on his stance.

“When you were nominated for Secretary of Energy, we had a frank and serious conversation about my grave concerns about siting nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Since you visited the site, you went from touting the importance of state sovereignty to a full-throated support for depositing the nation’s waste in Nevada, against the will of my state, undermining the state’s right to defend its communities against dangerous nuclear waste. What has prompted such a change in your viewpoint?” she asked Perry.

In response, Perry said, “With all due respect, I disagree with your analysis of my position. Nothing’s really changed. I think it is wise for us to have a very open conversation with this country but the moral obligation we have as a people. There is statutory requirements for us to move this waste. There are multiple options about where that waste could go ... there is no plan in place to put that in a particular place at this particular point in time but I think we need to be looking at all of our options and having an open and productive conversation.”

Later, Cortez Masto brought up consent-based siting, which requires local communities and stakeholders to first sign off on a facility. The Department of Energy under the Obama administration supported consent-based siting, but the Trump administration appears to have taken a different stance.

A tab titled “Consent-Based Siting” on the DOE website reads: “We are currently updating our website to reflect the Department’s priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Perry.”

“What we’re looking for is some sort of commitment that you’re looking for at least the science to prove that it’s safe,” Cortez Masto said to Perry.

Perry answered, “I think it’s important for us to do two things: Pay attention to the science, and also to the rule of law.”

Follow Lucas Thomas on Twitter, @LucasThomas14, or call him at 702-232-0603.