I am proud that after over two decades of fighting the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, the project is finally being terminated. 

The proposal to dump nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain threatened the health and safety of Nevadans and people across our nation. Yucca Mountain, which is 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is simply not a safe or secure site to store nuclear waste for any period of time. 

Terminating the Dump

Today, the fate of the Yucca Mountain project has never been clearer. The President and his Administration have made it clear that Yucca Mountain is not a workable option.  The Yucca Mountain project no longer receives any federal funding, Department of Energy’s Yucca Mountain project office has been closed, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has discontinued its review of the application to begin construction at Yucca Mountain.

History of Yucca Mountain

I have long worked with the Nevada delegation and Nevada's leaders to put a stop to this flawed plan.

In 1982, the United States Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act instructing the DOE to identify possible sites to build and operate an underground disposal facility for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel. In 1984 the DOE chose ten sites to study as potential locations, but after only three years, Congress prematurely instructed the DOE to study only Yucca Mountain. In 2002, Congress recklessly approved President Bush’s decision that Yucca Mountain was suitable for nuclear waste.

In 2008, the DOE announced that it was raising Yucca Mountain’s estimated price tag from $57.5 billion to over $96 billion. Beyond its bloated budget, the Yucca Mountain project faced a laundry list of scientific, technical, public health, legal, and safety problems. The skyrocketing price tag, the steadfast opposition of Nevadans and their congressional delegation, and the growing understanding that Yucca was a mortally flawed proposal have led to the project’s demise.

Finding Alternatives to a Flawed Proposal