A plan to restart a licensing process to store nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain site appears to be dormant for at least the next year.
The U.S. Senate this week cut $30 million in funding for the process from a compromise defense bill on Monday.
Nevada Republican Sen. Dean Heller says he asked Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain to strip the funds for the project. Heller and most other Nevada politicians oppose restarting the mothballed project.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports Heller and Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto also blocked another $120 million that the House set aside for the project.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers from outside Nevada say the federal government needs to find a place store used fuel from commercial nuclear power plants that's sitting idle in 39 states.
Sen. Heller released a statement that reads in part, “I’m pleased I was able to work with Chairman McCain and Senator Jim Inhofe, a senior member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, to successfully ensure that our bill did not authorize a single dollar for Yucca Mountain, and I thank Chairman McCain for maintaining this position throughout the conference negotiations. While this is progress, I still have more work to do to ensure that Yucca Mountain never sees the light of day and I’m committed to doing everything that I can to make sure of it.”
Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
