Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who has pledged to stop the Department of Energy from building a permanent nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain in his state, is still preventing the White House from filling a key nuclear regulatory position in the U.S. government, Politico reported last week.
President Donald Trump nominated Republican Annie Caputo for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission seat eight months ago.
All three Trump administration nominees to fill out the commission — Caputo, David Wright, and current Commissioner Jeff Baran — have been approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. All are still waiting for floor votes from the full Senate.
Senators sometimes make their opposition to administration nominees public by sending written objections to the majority leader’s office, which then must by law be published in the congressional record. That law does not apply when senators announce their objections to the leader in person or over the phone.
Heller’s office did not reply to multiple requests for comment this week.
Congress in 1987 directed that Yucca Mountain be the only site studies for development of a waste repository. There has been little progress since then, and it could be years before the site is even licensed — assuming Congress provides the money the Energy Department needs to pursue its application and the NRC would require to decide whether to issue the license.
Caputo, a senior policy adviser to Senate EPW Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wy.) is seen to support use of Yucca Mountain for permanent disposal of U.S. spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Energy consultant Wright has also called for “science over politics” in determining whether to move ahead with the Nevada repository. Baran, a former Democratic congressional staffer who joined the commission in 2014, said as recently as October he was undecided on Yucca Mountain.
If confirmed, Wright and Caputo would fill vacancies on the five-member commission, respectively through June 2020 and June 2021, while Baran would receive a full-five year term, from June 2018 to June 2023.
Heller Primary Foe Wants Spent Fuel Reprocessing at Yucca
Danny Tarkanian, the Nevada businessman and perennial candidate running to Heller’s right in Nevada’s U.S. Senate primary this year, said this week most Nevadans he has spoken with want Yucca Mountain turned into a center for nuclear spent-fuel reprocessing.
Chance, been traveling throughout entire state and majority of people I have spoken with want to use Yucca Mtn. As reprocessing facility (not storage but reprocessing) https://t.co/i2JP4Jtm7O
— Danny Tarkanian (@DannyTarkanian) February 13, 2018
Tarkanian, who has framed himself as the candidate most loyal to Trump and his policies, posted that Twitter message the same day he staked out his official position on Yucca as a U.S. Senate candidate.
“With Yucca Mountain, Nevada has the opportunity to become a world leader in the reprocessing of nuclear fuel and eliminate 97% of our country’s nuclear waste,” Tarkanian wrote in a message posted to Facebook Monday. “Additionally, it would bring tremendous benefits, like thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment, to our state. In pushing to revive the project, the Trump administration recognizes how important Yucca Mountain is to Nevada and America.”
The GOP Senate primary election is June 12. Trump has not endorsed Tarkanian. The White House has requested nearly $170 million for fiscal 2019 to license Yucca Mountain as a permanent nuclear waste repository, not as a spent fuel reprocessing facility. Congress has so far in this fiscal year yet to rule definitively on a $150 million request to that same end.
There is a dearth of recent, vetted polls on the Nevada GOP Senate primary, but a pair of surveys from 2017 posted on Real Clear Politics put Tarkanian ahead of Heller by a bit more than a polling error.
Heller, lately, has started hitting back at Tarkanian, pointing out his losing record in Nevada elections and attempting to color him as pro-Yucca, local Nevada television media reported.
Federal politicians of practically every stripe in Nevada oppose storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. All but one member of the state’s congressional delegation oppose developing Yucca for nuclear purposes at all. The exception is Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.): the sole GOP member of the state’s congressional caucus. Amodei’s position is essentially the same as Tarkanian’s.
