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 Friday.
“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.
Nevada’s motion, filed by state Gov. Steve Sisolak (D), asked NRC to lift an 11-year suspension on its Yucca Mountain licensing proceedings, which the agency has said it paused in September 2011 due to “budgetary limitations” imposed by the Barack Obama administration’s decision in 2010 to cut funding for the proposed repository.
In her Sep. 21 letter, Titus, a vocal opponent of the Yucca Mountain site, 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 congressionally-designated facility to serve as a permanent repository for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel inventory. The proposed facility remains undeveloped despite an ill-fated attempt to restart the project in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump.
