Beyond Nuclear - Yucca Mountain

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Sunday

Feb162020

Trump Drops Yucca Mountain, Eyes Nuke Waste Fund Fee Restart

Exchange Monitor - Trump Drops Yucca Mountain, Eyes Nuke Waste Fund Fee Restart - By Chris Schneidmiller

As posted at the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Project's "What's News?" website.

February 16, 2020 |

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Friday

Feb142020

Is the Yucca dump mutant zombie really dead?!

In a tweet last week, President Trump said he has heard, and RESPECTS (yes, in all caps) Nevada, re: the proposed Yucca dump for high-level radioactive waste.

The dump has targeted Western Bands of the Shoshone Indian Nation there for 33 years, ever since the "Screw Nevada" bill of 1987.

Therefore, he will not request $120 million or so again this year, even though he did do so in each of the past three years, to fund the restart of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing proceeding.

Thus, Trump has attempted to ram the dump down Nevadans' throats, despite saying much the same as he just tweeted, while campaigning for president in Nevada four years ago, only to do the exact opposite once in the White House.

And his tweet's suspicious timing does beg the question of sincerity -- it is Trump's re-election year, with the Democratic presidential debate set for Feb. 19 in Las Vegas, followed by the "First in the West" Nevada caucuses on Feb. 22.

Dina Titus, five-term U.S. Congresswoman from Nevada's 1st District, who has led the Nevada congressional delegation's successful effort in the U.S. House to starve the Yucca dump beast of funding for a decade, responded to Trump's tweet: "They say if you can't beat them, join them. President Trump tried to shove nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain down our throats for three years. We beat him badly - three times in a row -- and he knows it. The President already broke the promise he made to Nevada when he said in Elko [in the last presidential campaign four years ago] that he would respect our state's opposition to Yucca Mountain. I have no reason to trust him this time around. Nevada can trust that I'll fight to make sure that our state does not become a dumping ground for the nation's nuclear waste."

The Yucca dump has been declared dead more than once before, such as when the Obama administration genuinely cancelled it in 2010 (see the Jim Day political cartoon, above right, published in the Las Vegas Review Journal -- and be sure to count the toes!), only to have U.S. House Republicans, and now Trump, try to resurrect it.

So, is the radioactively mutated zombie really dead this time? The Native Community Action Council (a party which has won legal standing, and introduced multiple contentions for hearing, in the NRC Yucca dump licensing proceeding), with a coalition of more than a thousand environmental groups in solidarity, stand ready to fight back against any attempt to revive Yucca dump licensing. What can you do to help?

Contact your U.S. Representative, and both your U.S. Senators. You can be patched through to your congress members' D.C. offices by calling the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Urge them to support, and even co-sponsor, the Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act (H.R. 1544 in the U.S. House; S. 649 in the Senate), a bill introduced by the Nevada congressional delegation, and co-sponsored by three former, and three current, Democratic presidential candidates.