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StumblePublished Monday, Feb. 4, 2008 | 9:55 a.m.
Updated Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008 | 2:14 p.m.
WASHINGTON — It’s budget day in Washington, and the one number Nevadans may want to know is $495 million — the amount President Bush is seeking for Yucca Mountain in fiscal 2009.
Bush’s proposed spending on the nuclear waste repository north of Las Vegas is on par with the $494.5 million he sought last year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid knocked that back to $390 million, severely crippling the project and prompting massive layoffs.
Now, the project faces a critical juncture as Energy department officials say the budget cut leaves them unable to guarantee they will meet a June 2008 deadline to submit Yucca’s license application.
Bush’s budget request looks encouraging to the nuclear industry, but it will be up to Congress to decide if Yucca deserves more or really is, as Nevada’s lawmakers believe, a dying project.
Said Reid in a statement: "Clearly, he will not get that funding. I will continue working with Nevada’s congressional delegation, while leveraging my leadership position in the Senate, to stop the dump from ever being built."
My question is whether or not the Nevada towns and cities will return the millions of dollars given to them over this deal. There may be 1.6 million in Las Vegas, but those down river from the Hanford Nuclear site number well over 2 million.
I have a relative who has had to visit Yucca Mountain several times in the last decade because of the DOE's involvement in Hanford and Yucca Mountain. Millions have been spent in the nearby cities and towns (to which they agreed). Now Harry Reid wants Nevada to back out of the agreement? Sounds like a con artist to me (take the money and run). I can't utter enough epithets to describe that man.
And to those of you worried about all things nuclear, try having it around your community for 60 years, a short distance from the second largest river in America and even being a target for nuclear strike during the cold war.