The Nuclear Regulatory Commission told a Nevada congresswoman in a recent letter that it was still considering a motion from the Silver State aimed at killing the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
NRC has Nevada’s Sep. 20 request to reopen the agency’s licensing proceedings for the Yucca Mountain site “under advisement in its adjudicatory capacity,” Brooke Clark, secretary of the commission, told Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) in a letter dated Sep. 28 and made public Oct. 21.
“Although the adjudication is suspended, it is still pending, and the Commission cannot discuss or comment on the issues involved in the matter, including those raised in your letter,” Clark told Titus.
The state’s motion, filed by Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D), asked NRC to lift the 11-year suspension on the agency’s Yucca Mountain licensing proceedings, which the NRC paused in September 2011 after the Barack Obama administration’s decision in 2010 to cut funding for the proposed repository.
In her Sep. 21 letter, Titus, one of the state’s many vocal opponents of Yucca Mountain, urged NRC to “give fair and full consideration” to Nevada’s request. “Since the license application has been on hold, our State faces an uncertain future of not knowing whether hazardous nuclear waste will be forced upon us,” she said.
Titus also raised concerns about what she called “financial implications” of building Yucca Mountain, and the potential costs of transporting spent nuclear fuel to the facility from reactor sites nationwide.
The Yucca Mountain site, located in Nye County, Nev., is the only facility Congress has authorized as a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel from U.S. power plants and high-level waste for nuclear weapons programs. The proposed facility remains undeveloped despite an attempt to restart the project in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump.
