Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
4/10/2015
Six House lawmakers toured the long-shuttered Yucca Mountain site this week, in what critics have called a “political sideshow” to gain momentum to restart a project that has been closed off for five years. The group, led by House Environment and the Economy Subcommittee Chair John Shimkus (R-Ill.), toured the five-mile tunnel at Yucca Mountain for an hour and fifteen minutes, according to the Las-Vegas Review-Journal. “It’s 30 years, $15 billion of an investment by the nation. Again with the facts that the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] has said, once fully used it will be safe for a million years. It’s an investment that we need to keep in mind as we move forward,” Shimkus told the Review-Journal. Others on the tour included Reps. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.), Bob Latta (R-Ohio), Cresent Hardy (R-Nev.), Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), and Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.).
Momentum towards a solution in Congress nuclear waste policy has been growing since the year began. House Republicans, led by Shimkus, have announced plans to introduce legislation soon that would incentivize Nevada into hosting a repository, mainly through infrastructure and economic boosts. On the Senate side, Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has voiced his support for Yucca Mountain, and has said that in conjunction with interim storage, funding for the project could make the Senate’s final appropriations legislation for next year. Alexander also introduced last month with bi-partisan support a bill that would overhaul the nation’s nuclear waste policy and allow the construction of a pilot interim storage facility, among other things. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, meanwhile, has released the Safety Evaluation Report on Yucca Mountain, which found the repository design meets most regulatory safety requirements.
Tour a ‘Political Sideshow,’ Heller says.
In response to the tour, Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) voiced his disappointment in the group, stating they turned the trip away from facts in favor of “pomp and circumstance.” With Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) impending departure from the Senate, Heller has taken become the one of the most vocal opponents to the Yucca Mountain project. “It is evident members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee are saying one thing but doing another on the so-called ‘fact-finding’ trip to Yucca Mountain,” Heller said in a statement. “Instead, the Committee engineered this visit from the very beginning to serve one distinct, self-serving purpose: that of becoming a disingenuous, political sideshow.” He added, “Nevadans have made their intentions clear, they simply do not want nuclear waste stored at Yucca. No amount of political pomp and circumstance will change that.”
Rep. Diane Titus (D-Nev.), also a long-time opponent to the project, echoed Heller’s statement. “This taxpayer-funded junket does not move the conversation on long-term nuclear waste storage any closer to a solution,” Titus said in a statement. “Nevada, which does not have a single nuclear waste plant, didn’t create this problem, and should not be forced to be the nation’s dumping ground.” Titus, along with Reid and Heller, introduced earlier this year the Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act, which would permits the NRC to authorize construction of a nuclear waste repository only if the Secretary of Energy has secured written consent from the governor of the host state, affected units of local government, and affected Indian tribes.
Nevada Representative Denied Place on Tour
Heller, meanwhile, tried to intervene this week to try to ensure a representative from the Nevada Office for Nuclear Projects could attend the tour, according to a letter he sent to Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz. Heller requested that Moniz grant an additional spot for the Nevada representative to attend the tour after Shimkus said that all the spots were filled, rejecting the state’s offer to send a geologist to address the alleged technical problems at the site. “Given that in his letter, Chairman Shimkus stated that he was eager to discuss this issue with the state and underscored the importance of a constructive dialogue between the federal, state, local, and tribal stakeholders, this request would seem consistent with the goals of his visit,” Heller said in the April 7 letter to Moniz. “As such, I request that the Department allow Chairman Shimkus to add a representative from the state of Nevada to the itinerary.”
According Shimkus, the tour was filled to capacity, he said in an April 6 letter to Nevada Office for Nuclear Projects Executive Director Bob Halstead. Halstead had offered to send a geologist from the Nevada office to join the tour and point out some technical faults with the site, but Shimkus declined to add him to the tour. “I am grateful for your generous offer of Mr. Frishman’s time; however, DOE’s current itinerary for the tour is fully subscribed,” Shimkus said in the letter. “Please contact my office to arrange a phone call or a meeting the next time you are in Washington, DC. I appreciate your offer of assistance and look forward to working with you as we move forward on the project.”
DOE, for its part, said it was conducting the tour at Shimkus’ behest, meaning he decides who can attend and who cannot attend. “As part of hosting a tour of the Yucca Mountain facility at the request of the House Energy and Commerce Environment and Economy Subcommittee, the Department of Energy has accommodated all requests for participants made by the Subcommittee; including Members of Congress, Congressional and Committee staff, and press,” a DOE spokesperson said this week. “The Department has not received a request from the Subcommittee to include a participant representing the State of Nevada. As the Committee with jurisdiction over DOE having requested the tour, the Department will fully consider and attempt to accommodate any additional requests from the Subcommittee for the upcoming tour.”
