Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Nevada senators want classified briefing on secret plutonium shipment

Rick Perry

Hadi Mizban, pool / AP

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry speaks at a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018.

Catherine Cortez Masto

Catherine Cortez Masto

Sen. Jacky Rosen

Sen. Jacky Rosen

RENO — Nevada's U.S. senators are asking Energy Secretary Rick Perry for a classified briefing on the secret shipment of weapons-grade plutonium to a nuclear security site north of Las Vegas.

Democrats Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen expressed their "continued outrage" over the Trump administration's handling of the radioactive material in a letter to Perry Friday.

The department revealed this week that it trucked 1,000 pounds (453 kilograms) of plutonium from South Carolina to Nevada sometime before November when Nevada sued to block the shipments.

The department insists appropriate notice was provided in August when it approved plans to temporarily store plutonium in Nevada to meet a court-ordered deadline to remove it from South Carolina by 2020.

The senators say department officials lied to a federal judge about the status of the shipments during a Jan. 17 hearing in Reno.