New bid to keep Yucca alive as lawmakers debate shutdown
By Steve Tetreault
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Posted: Jun. 1, 2011 | 5:03 p.m.
WASHINGTON -- A House panel is launching a new but scaled-back bid to keep alive the Yucca Mountain Project that the Obama administration is moving to terminate by the end of September.
A 2012 energy spending bill being formed by the House Appropriations Committee contains $35 million for the Nevada nuclear waste program that has been largely shut down except for work being wrapped up at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
For a project that had been reduced over time from budgets of well more than $400 million, the latest funding being set aside is a nominal amount that one supportive lawmaker, Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, described as a symbolic figure.
The new bill, posted Wednesday on the House committee's website, also contains a directive for the NRC to halt its shutdown work. Similar legislation was killed in Congress this year by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
A 2012 energy spending bill being formed by the House Appropriations Committee contains $35 million for the Nevada nuclear waste program that has been largely shut down except for work being wrapped up at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
For a project that had been reduced over time from budgets of well more than $400 million, the latest funding being set aside is a nominal amount that one supportive lawmaker, Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, described as a symbolic figure.
The new bill, posted Wednesday on the House committee's website, also contains a directive for the NRC to halt its shutdown work. Similar legislation was killed in Congress this year by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.