House to Vote on Nucelar Waste Bill Today ECA Staff | May 10, 2018
The House will take up the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2018 ( H.R. 3053) this morning, with voting expected to start at 10:45 AM ET.
The legislation has bipartisan support in the House and is expected to pass, though its fate in the Senate is far less certain with Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) opposing the bill. Senator Heller's seat is considered to be one of the more vulnerable Republican seats for the mid-term
elections this fall.
H.R. 3053 would amend the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act by integrating federal nuclear waste management activities, providing consolidated storage options, revamping the Nuclear Waste Fund, and permitting local stakeholders--such as local communities--to engage directly with the federal government. A fact sheet on the bill can be found here. LEGISLATIVEBipartisan Support for Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Bill — Except in
Nevada Roll Call | May 9, 2018
The House will take up legislation this week that would help restart the stalled process for making Nevada’s Yucca Mountain a central repository for commercial nuclear waste. After years of false starts and misses, the bill is moving with bipartisan
support.
In Nevada, however, there is bipartisan opposition to the Yucca project, and the state’s congressional delegation prepared a series of amendments meant to ensure that the House would consider key safety provisions for the project, which is located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas and adjacent to the land where the government tested nuclear weapons.
NUCLEAR SECURITY Guest editorial: A
time to discuss pit production and MOX Aiken Standard | May 10, 2018 As reported in the May 4, 2018, edition of the Aiken Standard, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster recently penned a
letter to U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry stating his displeasure at plans to cancel the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility project at the Savannah River Site. We applaud McMaster’s efforts to keep SRS from becoming a permanent plutonium waste repository.
Current or new missions at SRS producing significant high-level waste streams must have an achievable disposition path
out of SRS and South Carolina. The federal government doesn’t have a strong record in this regard. Yucca Mountain is a case in point, and McMaster is right to point this out to DOE.
However, we shouldn’t make the MOX project and Pit Production an “either-or” scenario between these two valuable missions. We have 10 local resolutions from county and municipal governments supporting
this position. Furthermore, regarding Pit Production we do not see this as a zero-sum contest between SRS and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Instead, it’s an opportunity for collaboration between both communities. For the sake of national security, both sites must work together.
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