“Today’s decision affirms what I have been saying all along – Yucca Mountain remains the legally designated national repository for spent nuclear fuel and high level defense waste, and the Department of Energy has no authority to withdraw the license application. Only Congress can change the law. Repeated votes to reaffirm Yucca as our nation’s repository are an indication that the site remains our nation’s long-term national repository under the law.
– Edited by Mark McFadden –
Congressman Doc Hastings (WA-04) has released the attached statement following the decision by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board to deny the Department of Energy’s motion to withdraw the license application for Yucca Mountain.
“Today’s decision affirms what I have been saying all along – Yucca Mountain remains the legally designated national repository for spent nuclear fuel and high level defense waste, and the Department of Energy has no authority to withdraw the license application. Only Congress can change the law. Repeated votes to reaffirm Yucca as our nation’s repository are an indication that the site remains our nation’s long-term national repository under the law."
“In light of this decision, I strongly encourage the Obama Administration to halt all actions to reprogram funds, terminate contracts, and further dismantle Yucca Mountain. It’s time for this Administration to adhere to the law and move forward with bringing Yucca Mountain on line.”
Congressman Doc Hastings is one of two Washington state congressmen who say that they will fight to keep the federal government from permanently abandoning a proposed nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Reps. Doc Hastings and Jay Inslee, the former a Republican representing largely rural central Washington and the latter a Democrat from Seattle's heavily populated suburbs, feel that Yucca Mountain plays an important role in ridding the state of its used nuclear fuel and defense waste. Hastings and Inslee are part of a bipartisan group in Congress sponsoring a resolution to bar the administration from cutting funding for the project.
The Obama administration wants to withdraw its application to build Yucca Mountain. While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was considering the proposal. Washington state and South Carolina filed suit to prevent the government from killing the project.
Taxpayers have already spent $10 billion on Yucca Mountain, and abandoning at this stage would not make sense, says Inslee. "We do not intend to allow any administration to shut down Yucca and leave us stuck with both a mountain of debt and a mountain of waste."