Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is right to sue the federal government – and his old friend, new Energy Secretary Rick Perry – over the Energy Department’s handling of the Yucca Mountain project.
If we’re serious about climate change and carbon emissions, then we’re going to have to get serious about nuclear power (which is far more green than wind or solar). And to do that, we’re going to need the Yucca Mountain repository for nuclear waste.
“Texas is trying to take the federal government to task for failing to find a permanent disposal site for thousands of metric tons of radioactive waste piling up at nuclear reactor sites across the country,” reports the Texas Tribune. “In a lawsuit filed Tuesday night, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accuses U.S. agencies of violating federal law by failing to license a nuclear waste repository in Nevada – a plan delayed for decades amid a highly politicized fight.”
The state of Texas is asking for a simple up-or-down vote by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Yucca Mountain.
“For decades, the federal government has ignored our growing problem of nuclear waste,” Paxton said in a statement Wednesday. “The NRC’s inaction on licensing Yucca Mountain subjects the public and the environment to potential dangerous risks from radioactive waste. We do not intend to sit quietly anymore.”
A little background on the Yucca Mountain project: The Department of Energy has spent more than $15 billion developing Yucca Mountain. There’s even a 1987 law, enacted by Congress and signed by President Reagan, naming Yucca Mountain as the nation’s nuclear waste repository.
What’s more, a recent study shows that Yucca Mountain is the safest option for long-term storage.
It’s essentially a big rock in the middle of nowhere. But it’s in the middle of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s nowhere, which explains why it has been blocked, despite it being the ideal repository.
“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission … released a long-delayed report on the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a disposal spot for nuclear waste, finding that the design met the commission’s requirements, laying the groundwork to restart the project if control of the Senate changes hands in the elections next month,” the New York Times reported in 2015.
The project was never restarted.
As far back as 1995, a National Academy of Sciences report concluded underground storage is safe, and also that governments must act quickly to alleviate the accumulating waste in above-ground temporary storage facilities.
And every U.S. Department of Energy study since them has similar findings – that nuclear waste can be safely stored at the Yucca Mountain site.
The Texas Tribune notes that Paxton filed the lawsuit just weeks after Perry was sworn in. Texas should have an ally in Perry in this matter; it’s just common sense. And Perry is aware of the need for long-term solutions for nuclear waste (he mentioned the issue during confirmation hearings).
It’s time to move forward on Yucca Mountain. Perry can help by instructing his agency not to contest Paxton’s lawsuit.
