Three days after Americans went to the polls for the midterm election, it remains unclear whether two staunch opponents of a Nevada geologic repository will remain in power in the Silver State, according to election data.
As of Friday, incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) trailed her Republican opponent, former state attorney general Adam Laxalt, by just one percentage point, according to NBC News election results. With around 88% of ballots counted, Cortez Masto captured around 48% of the vote, while Laxalt led with 49%.
Cortez Masto is an avowed opponent of the mothballed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nye County, Nev. The senator, elected in 2016, has lobbied over the last several fiscal years to keep funding for Yucca Mountain out of the federal budget and proposed legislation aimed at blocking the Department of Energy from accessing federal funds to develop the site.
Laxalt is no friend of Yucca Mountain, either. During his time as Nevada’s attorney general, he successfully countered a 2018 lawsuit from the state of Texas aimed at fast-tracking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s review of the Yucca Mountain project. Laxalt also oversaw Carson City’s suit against DOE over its plan to ship weapons-usable plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site.
Meanwhile, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) was also running behind his opponent, former Clark County, Nev., sheriff Joe Lombardo, as of Friday. The incumbent governor had around 47% of the vote to Lombardo’s nearly 50%.
Sisolak in September asked NRC to allow Nevada to make a formal motion to cancel the agency’s long-stalled review of the Yucca Mountain site.
Out in California, Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) widened his lead against challenger Brian Maryott (R) in the race to represent the Golden State’s 49th congressional district. As of Friday morning Levin led Maryott by roughly 7,000 votes, around 52% to 48%, with around 64% of the district’s ballots counted.
California’s 49th district is home to San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) and its 123 canisters of spent nuclear fuel, stored on-site. During his time on Capitol Hill, Levin has used SONGS as a springboard to become one of Congress’s most vocal proponents of nuclear waste issues.
Levin in 2021 founded a congressional spent fuel caucus, and has introduced legislation that would allow SONGS to be among the first nuclear facilities to have its spent fuel moved to a future federal repository.
Maryott, who failed to unseat Levin in the 2020 election, has said that if elected he would work with Congress to restart the Yucca Mountain development process.
