In the state’s latest attempt to kill the project for good, Nevada on Tuesday asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to end the long-stalled licensing review of the U.S.’s only congressionally-designated storage facility for spent nuclear fuel.
Gov. Steve Sisolak’s (D) motion, if approved by NRC, would re-open licensing proceedings for the Yucca Mountain site — which have been on ice since September 2011 after the Barack Obama administration pulled the project’s funding — so that Nevada could formally ask that the proceedings be brought to a close.
If the case is reopened, Nevada plans to file a separate motion asking NRC to toss its licensing review of the Nye County, Nev., repository, Sisolak said.
The governor cited the Department of Energy’s “failure to obtain necessary ownership and controls over land” and airspace around Yucca Mountain, as well as the department’s refusal to assess the effects of climate change on the proposed repository, as “clearly uncontested facts” supporting its move to do away with licensing proceedings.
A motion to dispose of licensing proceedings offers a “unique potential” for NRC to make “meaningful progress” on its long-delayed review of the Yucca Mountain site by resolving it entirely, Sisolak argued.
“The proposed Yucca Mountain repository is now an unfunded zombie-like federal project that has staggered around the halls of Congress begging for appropriations support for more than a decade with no success,” Sisolak said in the filing.
“Nevada believes strongly that the time has come to put this long-dormant and unproven Federal project out of its misery so that Nevada can devote its attention and resources to other matters and the United States can move on to consider other more viable solutions for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste,” Sisolak said.
A spokesperson for NRC confirmed that the agency had received Sisolak’s motion Tuesday. As of Tuesday afternoon, the commission’s five-member executive committee had yet to rule on Nevada’s request.
Members of Nevada’s congressional delegation including Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who is up for election in November’s midterms, applauded Sisolak for his motion in a statement Tuesday.
“I support Nevada’s efforts to end the licensing process for Yucca Mountain,” Cortez Masto said, “and I will continue to work with all stakeholders at the federal, state, local, and Tribal levels to find a safe, workable, and consent-based alternative.”
Yucca Mountain, approved in 1987 by Congress to be the nation’s permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel, has yet to receive a single waste shipment. The Barack Obama administration pulled the site’s funding in 2010 amid political pressure from the Nevada congressional delegation, notably Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Despite an ill-fated attempt in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump to restart Yucca Mountain, the site remains unfinished today, and the Joe Biden administration has committed not to fund the project for anything more than physical security.
