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Published Monday, Feb. 1, 2010 | 10:23 a.m.
Updated Monday, Feb. 1, 2010 | 3:04 p.m.
Sun coverage
Related stories
- Obama to zero out Yucca Mountain funding, pull license (1-31-2010)
- Dying Yucca Mountain still has some life (1-30-2010)
- Obama administration: ‘We’re done with Yucca’ (1-29-2010)
- Friday announcement will unveil plans for panel on Yucca alternatives (1-28-2010)
- White House, Energy Department clash over Yucca Mountain cuts (1-14-2010)
- Report: Yucca Mountain costs double other alternatives (12-2-2009)
- Nuclear industry weighs in on nuke dump license (11-16-2009)
- In Nevada, nuclear raises touchy issues (11-14-2009)
- Feds to slash Yucca funds as project maintains life (11-9-2009
- 3 Las Vegans join state Commission on Nuclear Projects (11-5-2009)
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department today filed a request to suspend Yucca Mountain's license application and announced plans to withdraw the license completely within a month -- a critical, crushing step to end the nuclear waste dump in Nevada.
The Obama administration's new budget for 2011 out today promises to zero out funds and withdraw the license, but it had been unclear whether the president would begin taking steps to pull back the license as he promised while campaigning in Nevada.
However, Energy Secretary Steven Chu confirmed today he will be withdrawing the license "with prejudice" -- a crucial legal term that, if approved, would mean the application could not be reconsidered at a future date for a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. The Energy Department filed the suspension of the license application today.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had been in constant talks with the Obama administration to end the project.
"This is great news," said Bruce Breslow, the executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, which has been fighting the dump for 25 years. Perhaps even more than cutting the funds, withdrawing the license delivers the closest action yet to a fatal blow.
Those who oppose the waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas have worried that unless the application to license Yucca Mountain that is now pending for review at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is withdrawn, a more friendly administration could revive the nuclear waste project.
That license review is a lengthy four-year process that could finish by 2012 -- a presidential election year.
Breslow was guardedly optimistic: "We had champagne on ice for 25 years, but we won't pop the cork until we see the terms and conditions of the withdrawal of the Yucca Mountain license application."
President Barack Obama had campaigned for the presidency in Nevada on the promise that he would withdraw the license.
But the administration had been hesitant to pull the license last year, even as it slashed Yucca's budget. The federal government faces mounting liability from the power companies, which have been successfully suing the government for failing to open Yucca Mountain and take the nuclear waste off their hands.
The steps the Obama administration has taken over the past several days are the most significant to date in ending the Yucca Mountain project.
Obama plans to zero out funding and shift the office that handled Yucca Mountain into the Energy Department's existing nuclear office.
Plus, the administration has begun the process of seeking a viable Plan B. On Friday, the administration established a commission headed by Lee Hamilton and Brent Scowcroft to study alternatives.
The commission is one way to assure the nuclear industry that the administration will make good on its promise to take the waste. The administration also announced it would be beefing up new federal loan guarantees sought by the nuclear industry to build new power plants Obama touted in his State of the Union speech last week.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main lobby, held out hope today that Yucca Mountain could remain on the back burner as a possible nuclear waste repository for the future.
“The industry does not support the termination of this program but believes that, if it is going to happen, it should occur in an orderly manner to permit the licensing process to be restarted if ever warranted,” CEO Marvin Fertel said. The lobby will be closely monitoring the withdrawal language and would not say today if it would appeal.
Some skeptics may argue that the Yucca Mountain site is not truly dead because it remains in the 1987 law as the proposed location for the nation's nuclear waste and Congress is unlikely to have the votes now to reverse that law.
However, by pulling the license, the administration sets the project down a nearly irreversible course. Once a project is withdrawn with prejudice it cannot be resubmitted without starting from scratch -- a monumental task.
Congress would likely revisit the 1987 law that established Yucca Mountain as the site as the nation's dump as it considers the recommendations of the new commission that is reviewing options for nuclear waste.
"The president’s budget axes all remaining funding for Yucca Mountain and DOE has said it will pull the plug on efforts to license the dump, making it all but impossible for this threat to one day return from the grave,” said Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley.
"There will be nothing left of Yucca Mountain when we get done but a bleached pile of bones.”
Breslow said the state would be looking to the Energy Department to begin to restore the desert site where it has been working and drilling for years, a remediation required under existing law if the government declines to use Yucca Mountain. "We will want to ensure that DOE follows up on site restoration and reclamation and preserve all important documents to protect our legal position in the future."
"We need to ensure that DOE follows up on preserve all important documents to protect our legal position in the future."
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Hum - Have they already started the shredding?
What is important?
Could it be all those e-mails between Obama, Reid, and Chu.
So is this creating jobs???
Great way to help the unemployment rate, shut down an engineering project.
Whats the alternative? Who has the bright idea to store it somewhere else? This is a better alternative, than storing it in drums, in a pit, next to the power plant...at least this is managed and buried in an encasement inside the mountain..Or hey, we could send it all to the sun on the last space shuttle...
Simply an idiotic move.
Now we lose jobs, revenue and prestige in the world for having put together an almost 1B project designed to do this job of storing waste.
What do we get in return, and idiot moronic old far of a man who at the age of 71 knows absolutely nothing, nor does he care about Nevada.
So if the Congress pulls the funding on Yucca, let's pull the funding from Dirty Harry and revoke his license to screw up Nevada anymore in November of this year!
As for the Obama idiot, the administration is watning more than $50B for new nuclear plants. So where are we going to store all that waste product, in 55 gallon barrles on the property?
That is the greatest way to do this, in the early part of this 1900 century!
But when we have such an ancient person as Reid running our government it is obviously how far out of touch this 71 year old is!
So let's let him retire to Searchlight with his $250K senatorial retirement and the other monies he has stolen from us over the years through corruption.
Harry Reid.. Man AGAINST the State Of Nevada and enemy of the people of Nevada.
I can't help smiling as I read these comments from the usual suspects (likely DOE employees and those being paid to sell the nation's nuke waste to Nevada). The term "sour grapes" comes to mind. Yucca Mountain may finally be on its death bed, as it should be. At the very least, pro-Yucca types will soon be looking for a job. I hate to see any Nevadan unemployed during tough times, but this is for the greater good.
Looks like Harry Reid is shovel-ready. Bye-bye, Harry.
OK, so Obama and Reid want Yucca Mountain to be dead. Each state is now on its own.
Nevada needs to find a place to store its thousands of spent fuel assemblies for the nuclear electricity that powers Las Vegas, and its share of defense waste that protects the state, about 1/60th of what Yucca Mountain was to store.
Where do you want to put it all? Leaving it in other states is not an option obviously.
Further, Idaho can now refuse to accept Naval cores and other defense waste. Perhaps all of this should be stored in Nevada also.
Finally, Hanford had over 2000 earthquakes last year. Yucca Mountain had less than 50. All of Hanford's waste should be moved to Nevada since it is obviously safer.
Payback from 49 other states will be h***. Welcome to the post-NWPA era in Obama's America.
Oh, as to any significance of "with prejudice", what a joke. TVA cancelled its license to build the Bellefonte nuclear power plants, and just last month the NRC reinstated fully the license.
Pulling the Repository license application without changing the NWPA does not end Yucca Mountain. The next Republican President and Congress could authorize full steam ahead since Reid does not have the votes to change the NWPA.
Nevada's press is either really ignorant of the laws, or are sycophants of Reid.
davelv stated:
"Nevada's press is either really ignorant of the laws, or are sycophants of Reid."
Or both.
This is huge news for Nevada and wouldn't have happened with Reid. Thanks Senator Reid!
Yucca is not dead, just lying dormant until Harry leaves office in November...
Obama is just trying to help old Harry in his reelection attempt...
Also, I would like to congratulate President Obama in his decision to triple the size of the Energy Department's loan guarantee program to $54 billion, which could support the construction of seven to 10 new reactors.