nuclear-news

If the government is serious about crafting a new national nuclear waste solution that involves asking states to accept and store dangerous military and commercial radioactive material, the least it can do is deliver a pitch to the state it tried to force the waste upon all those years ago.

Obviously, Washington has learned some lessons from the Yucca Mountain Project, the boondoggle to end all boondoggles, one of the most cynical exercises in political power the country has ever seen. About three decades ago, what was supposed to be an objective, scientific exercise in selecting a permanent storage site for the country’s high-level nuclear waste became a rigged game. Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1987 to make Yucca Mountain, a ridge inside the Nevada Test Site about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, theonly site under study for the dump. Nevada had no political clout, so the rest of the country ganged up, scratched other potential locations from the list and said, “You’ll take our waste — and like it.” The legislation became known as the “Screw Nevada bill.”