Nevada’s Congressional delegation got a chance to celebrate this week the Joe Biden administration’s decision not to fund the country’s only spent fuel repository project.
During the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s budget hearing for fiscal year 2022, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) told energy secretary Jennifer Granholm that she was “pleased to hear” the Department of Energy wouldn’t seek funding for the moribund geologic repository.
I’m glad the Biden admin and I agree that Yucca Mountain is not the answer to our nation’s nuclear waste storage problem. Today, when I pressed this issue with @SecGranholm, she confirmed “Yucca Mountain is NOT the solution.” pic.twitter.com/yhJLJUTKY4
— Senator Cortez Masto (@SenCortezMasto) June 16, 2021
“If we’re going to go down the clean energy path with nuclear power, we have to address the issue with the waste that is out there,” Cortez Masto said, “and Yucca Mountain is not the answer.”
It wasn’t likely that Yucca Mountain, located in Nye County, Nev., would be revived by the White House — since Jan. 20 the Biden team has signaled its intention not to fund the project. Yucca’s cash flow was halted in 2012 by the Barack Obama administration and has remained that way despite an attempt by the Donald Trump administration to start things up again.
In the absence of a permanent solution for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel, private companies are trying to fill the gaps. Both Holtec International and Orano-Waste Control Specialists joint venture Interim Storage Partners are seeking licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build consolidated interim storage facilities for spent fuel.
Meanwhile, DOE requested around $20 million for fiscal 2022 to explore options for a federal interim storage site using a much-vaunted “consent-based” approach. Granholm said Tuesday that her agency would begin its inquiry next month.
