Fireworks could fly Wednesday, when three of Nevada’s four U.S. representatives are set to testify before a House energy panel about reviving the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nye County, Nev.
The three democratic lawmakers, who all oppose Yucca, will testify during a hearing on the 45-page Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017 the House Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee unveiled last week.
The bill, in large part the brainchild of Yucca champion Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), would expand the federal government’s regulatory power at the Yucca site while reducing Nevada’s ability to block construction of the planned deep-underground disposal facility.
The three Nevada congresspeople set to testify in the first panel of Wednesday’s 10 a.m. hearing are:
Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.)
Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.)
Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-Nev.)
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) is also scheduled to testify during the first panel. He would be the only pro-Yucca voice on the panel.
Nevada’s sole GOP congressman, Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), is not slated to appear at Wednesday’s hearing. The four-term House member, whose district does not include Nye County, believes Yucca “will eventually come to fruition,” and that he and his colleagues “should work to dictate the terms of the repository under the best conditions for our state.”
That would include making Yucca “a bastion of nuclear research and [spent nuclear fuel] reprocessing,” and not “a simple dumping site for the nation’s nuclear waste,” according to Amodei’s website.
The Donald Trump administration has proposed spending $120 million in 2018 to resume licensing Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository. The Obama administration halted the Energy Department’s Yucca license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2010.
