Dingy Reid is against jobs for Nevadans.
Federal regulators said nuclear waste can be stored safely at Yucca Mountain, and Republicans quickly seized on the report to promote designating the Nevada site as the nation’s permanent waste dump.
While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said waste could be safely stored, it stopped short of endorsing the site in the final two volumes of its safety evaluation report. The Energy Department doesn’t possess the land to build the site — that must be transferred by Congress — nor does it hold the water rights, a matter for the courts to decide.
But Republicans said the passing safety grade NRC gave Yucca eliminates opponents’ arguments that nuclear waste cannot be safely stored.
“Today’s report settles it: To continue to oppose Yucca Mountain because of radiation concerns is to ignore science. This report says that Yucca Mountain would meet all of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s performance requirements for safe operation,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a Yucca proponent.[…]
Although the GOP-led Senate would likely be more conducive to giving Yucca the thumbs up than the previous Democrat-controlled version, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has vowed to never let it get built.