As final votes were tabulated across the country following last week’s midterm elections, Nevada’s incumbent senior senator, a staunch opponent of a national nuclear waste repository there, managed to hold onto her seat, state election stewards reported this week.
Although she trailed former state attorney general Adam Laxalt (R) heading into the weekend, Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) edged out her opponent by less than a single percentage point to claim victory Saturday night. According to election results from the Nevada secretary of state, the incumbent senator captured around 48.8% of the vote compared to Laxalt’s 48.1%, a difference of roughly 6,000 votes.
A Democratic victory in Nevada guarantees that the party will control the Senate with 50 seats and Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie breaking vote.
During her time on Capitol Hill, Cortez Masto has been an immovable opponent of the mothballed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nye County, Nev. The senator, elected in 2016, has lobbied over the last several fiscal years to keep funding for Yucca Mountain out of the federal budget and proposed legislation aimed at blocking the Department of Energy from accessing federal funds to develop the site.
Cortez Masto in 2016 won a special election to take over in the Senate for the retiring Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Reid in 2010 was partly responsible for the Barack Obama administration’s decision to pull federal funding for the Yucca Mountain site, a decision that has stuck despite then-President Donald Trump’s attempt to restart the project in 2018.
Also in the midterms last week, the Silver State elected a Republican governor. Former Clark County, Nev., sheriff Joe Lombardo (R) defeated incumbent Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) by a margin of around 17,000 votes.
Sisolak in September asked NRC to allow Nevada to make a formal motion to cancel the agency’s long-stalled review of the Yucca Mountain site. A spokesperson for Lombardo’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment by deadline Friday as to whether the governor-elect would continue Sisolak’s effort.
The midterms also saw some other developments relevant to the civilian nuclear power space:
- In California, Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) held off challenger Brian Maryott (R) to keep his seat representing the Golden State’s 49th district — which includes the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). Levin, who won reelection with around 52.6% of the vote, has in recent months used SONGS and its 123 canisters of spent nuclear fuel as a springboard to become one of Congress’s most prominent voices for a federal nuclear waste storage solution.
- In Michigan’s fourth congressional district, incumbent Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) dispatched write-in Democratic candidate Joseph Alfonso with around 54% of the vote. Following state redistricting this year, Huizenga represents the former Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, which shuttered in May. Palisades’ current owner, decommissioning company Holtec International, applied in September for a federal bailout in hopes of potentially restarting the plant.
