The U.S. senators from Nevada, Harry Reid (D) and John Ensign (R), submitted legislation yesterday to establish a commission to study how to store highly radioactive nuclear waste in the United States now that the Obama administration has rejected a longtime plan to consolidate the material in an underground repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain (see GSN, March 12).
The concept appears to mirror an administration plan announced this week to form a blue-ribbon panel to study the same question. The Reid plan, announced in a release yesterday, calls for a commission to issue a recommendation within two years, while U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said his panel would report by the end of this year.
Nevada lawmakers have long opposed the planned repository, fearing long-term environmental effects from storing spent fuel from the nation's nuclear power plants. Currently that high-level is stored at the power plant sites, which some critics say lack effective safety and security measures (Greg Webb, Global Security Newswire, March 13).
"This is a step that is way past due," Reid told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
"I am pleased to say that we are closing the book on our nation's failed nuclear waste policy," he added. "And I am proud to say that I have been working on a new volume in this terribly difficult debate."
It was not immediately clear whether or how the two panels might coordinate or consolidate, the Review-Journal reported.
"Secretary Chu agrees with Senator Reid on the need to bring together the best scientific minds and key stakeholders to help develop a thoughtful, responsible nuclear waste management strategy," Energy Department spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller said in a statement.
One industry group urged cooperation.
"Because otherwise, don't you risk competing missions?" asked Steve Kraft, waste management director for the Nuclear Energy Institute (Steve Tetreault, Las Vegas Review-Journal, March 13).