John Locher/Associated Press file
Participants in a 2015 congressional tour of Yucca Mountain enter the project’s south portal. The site is near the Nevada town of Mercury, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Sunday, March 7, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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Maybe, finally, it’s time for Nevada to obtain a right of refusal on efforts to dump the nation’s nuclear waste in our state.
This year, as they’ve done in the past, Southern Nevada’s congressional delegates have introduced a bill that would ban the federal government from transporting waste into a state without getting permission from the governor and local officials. With that protection in place, Nevada would gain substantial power to halt the development of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and keep it off the table as an option for storing radioactive materials.
The bill, which is spearheaded by Rep. Dina Titus and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in their respective chambers, would require the feds to obtain unanimous permission from the governor, affected units of local government and affected Native American tribes before shipping waste. In the case of shipments to Yucca Mountain, it could also involve the Clark County Commission if and when the federal government authorizes detailed plans for transportation routes.
The previous bills died amid opposition from the Trump administration and leaders of other states, mostly Republicans, who were bent on shoving waste from their nuclear power plants and weapons-making facilities down Nevadans’ throats.
But this year could be different, thanks to several key factors. For starters, our political clout in Washington is on the rise, with our Southern Nevada congressional delegates increasingly working their way into positions of prominence and as members of powerful committees. One example: Cortez Masto rose up the leadership ranks last year when, as chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, she played a key role in Democrats gaining control of the Senate.
Another plus for Nevada is having Joe Biden in the White House. Biden and our state Democratic leaders are close, with Biden having campaigned here extensively as Barack Obama’s vice president and as a candidate in 2020. Gov. Steve Sisolak gave him an early endorsement last year after Biden endorsed Sisolak’s gubernatorial bid in 2018.
In addition, Biden remains close with former Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, with whom he served in the Senate for decades.
All of this bodes well for Nevada in the decades-long bid to protect itself from the Yucca Mountain project.
Biden supported Obama in suspending licensing for the repository in 2010 and keeping it on ice through the remainder of his administration. Biden also is on record unequivocally saying he opposes the project, including in an interview with the Sun’s editorial board before last year’s Nevada caucuses.
“I assure you as president there will be no storage at Yucca Mountain, period,” Biden said. “And it’s not just because of the instability and possibility of earthquakes, but because of the transportation to Yucca Mountain.”
The new bill would give Nevada a strong shield to block any attempt to resurrect the project. The entire Southern Nevada delegation has signed onto it. And given that both Democratic and Republican political leaders in Carson City, Washington and Clark County have been staunchly against the project, the bill would offer Nevadans some assurance that the project would remain dead, as federal officials would be unable to obtain permission to transport waste here. Unless the political attitude in our state were to change drastically, Nevadans could be assured that the state wouldn’t allow shipments.
In a prepared statement, Titus said officials in the Biden administration and Department of Energy are allied with Nevada on the issue. Cortez Masto, also in a statement, indicated that Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm would work with her on developing alternative storage plans that wouldn’t involve shipping tons of highly radioactive waste through Las Vegas.
“For too long, the voices of our state, local and tribal governments in Nevada have been silenced by a broken process,” Cortez Masto said in a prepared statement. “This legislation ensures that states like Nevada have a seat at the table when a permanent nuclear repository is proposed in their backyards.”
We’ll watch this bill with fingers crossed. But first we’ll applaud the congressional delegation for its vigilance and persistence on the issue.
The idea of moving thousands of metric tons of this material per year along train tracks and truck routes through Las Vegas is unacceptable, as is storing it in a mountain where it could leak into the groundwater or escape into the atmosphere over the thousands of years it will remain radioactive.
Keep in mind, this stuff is so hazardous that even when stored in heavily lined transportation casks, it will give off enough radioactivity to be measured a half-mile away. The consequences of one accident or a terrorist attack during transportation through Las Vegas would be terrifying.
Therefore, as Cortez Masto stated, we deserve a seat at the table in any discussion involving Yucca Mountain. It’s commendable that our leaders in Washington have recognized that the stars may be aligning this year, and are taking advantage of the opportunity to finally pass this much-needed bill.
