House Committee to Probe Yucca Cancellation
A U.S. House of Representatives committee has launched a probe into the Obama administration decision to cancel a longstanding plan to construct an atomic waste storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, McClatchy Newspapers reported on Friday (see GSN, March 14).The House Energy And Commerce Committee's move was warmly received by Democratic and Republican lawmakers representing states with large quantities of atomic waste held in temporary storage structures (see GSN, March 24).
"South Carolina has unfairly carried the burden for storing nuclear material for decades," Representative Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) said. His district includes the Savannah River Site, a component of the nation's nuclear weapons complex.
"I applaud the Energy and Commerce Committee for shining light on this important issue, and I hope their hearings will add even more pressure on the Obama administration to open Yucca Mountain," the lawmaker added.
Following a 1987 congressional statute establishing Yucca Mountain as the official U.S. atomic waste storage site, $12 billion in public funds has been spent to date on developing the facility. Obama officials have zeroed funding to the Yucca project in recent budget requests and have offered no other alternative permanent storage proposal. Instead, a blue-ribbon panel has been formed to study potential new solutions.
Representative Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) accused the White House of breaching the 1987 statute by ending all financial support for the Yucca plan.
"Congress has a very legitimate oversight of the executive branch if we think he is acting outside the law," said Hastings, who represents an area that includes the Hanford site, which houses large amounts of nuclear waste. "If any president, I don't care whether a Democrat or a Republican, tries to do something outside the law, that concerns me."
South Carolina and Washington have filed suit in federal court against the Obama administration for canceling the Yucca project.
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