The Nevada agency charged with leading the fight against the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in the state has launched a new salvo, this time against federal legislation aimed at advancing the project.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017, introduced last June by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), has a number of implications for Nevada, according to a nine-page analysis distributed to the state’s congressional delegation by Robert Halstead, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
“H.R. 3053 would restart the forced siting of a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. H.R. 3053 would constitute and expedite the primary provision of the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1987 … which designated Yucca Mountain as the only candidate site to be studied for a geologic repository,” according to the paper, which Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) made public on Friday.
Among the bill’s implications, for Nevada and beyond, according to Halstead:
- The legislation, as amended, sets a cap of 110,000 metric tons of waste that could be emplaced in the first repository before a second disposal site opens. That is up from 70,000 metric tons and “indicates that Congress could further revise upward or completely eliminate the capacity limit at any time.”
- The legislation undoes the ban in the 1987 amendment to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act against interim storage of spent fuel in Nevada.
- The legislation would give select land and water rights to DOE, speeding up the Yucca licensing process at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Shimkus has long been a proponent of Yucca Mountain as the answer to the question of where to put tens of thousands of tons of spent fuel and high-level waste stockpiled around the country. His bill passed out of committee within days of being introduced, but has not yet gotten a floor vote in the House. There was no update Friday on its outlook.
A Shimkus spokesman on Friday said the congressman’s office is reviewing the Halstead report.
