Question of the Day - 06 December 2024

[Editor's Note: This answer is written by David McKee. It mentions the names of three presidents and two senators. No opinions are expressed, just a recitation of their connection to Yucca Mountain history. Any political comments that slither through this pinhole will not see the light of day.] 

The federal government had been kicking around Yucca Mountain as a possible repository for spent nuclear fuel ever since 1978. In 1984, it was shortlisted for designation and then-President Ronald Reagan gave it the go-ahead three years later. This caused some consternation within the Nevada congressional delegation. For example, then-Sen. Chic Hecht made the most famous utterance of his political career. Washington, he complained, was foisting a “nuclear-waste suppository” on Nevada.

Hecht’s inspired malapropism, which outlived him, captured the tenor of the Silver State: Nuclear-fuel rods shipped to be stored 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas were indeed about as pleasant to contemplate as having a rectal delivery system for medication. 

Yucca Mountain was to become operational in January 1998, but was delayed by litigation. Congress officially designated Yucca Mountain as the site for a permanent nuclear-waste repository in 2002. But the plug was pulled in 2011 when Congress cut off funding for the project. Then-Sen. Harry Reid lobbied his fellow senators and the White House to end the threat to southern Nevada, which had already experienced more than its fair share of nuclear abuse. 

Currently, the Yucca Mountain storage facility is dormant, kaput, shuttered, never having taken any nuclear waste into its care. 

By the time Capitol Hill finally turned off the spigot, $15 billion had been spent hollowing out Yucca Mountain and making ready to hold spent nuclear fuel. The Obama administration nixed the project, but the subsequent Trump administration was no more tractable. Although the Department of Energy requested $240 million for Yucca Mountain activities (along with a $77.7 million plea from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) over the 2018-19 period, not one penny more was forthcoming from either the White House or Congress.

In the meantime, since 2015, Washington, D.C., has had to pay $24 billion to various states to compensate them for the cost and inconvenience of warehousing nuclear rods that were supposed to go to Nevada.

A change of administrations in D.C. always gives rise to fears that Yucca Mountain will be revived. However, President-elect Donald Trump has explicitly opposed the repository in the past. So this particular political football appears to be safely deflated … at least for now.