Letter: Yucca Mountain site is our best option for nuclear waste

To the editor:

As many of your readers know, 25 years ago Congress established a repository for nuclear waste underneath Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert. Three years ago, however, the president pulled the plug on the Yucca Mountain site, essentially eliminating one of our nation’s most viable options for long-term nuclear waste storage.

Last week, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future issued its final report on managing nuclear waste. Despite pressure from me and other members to recommend a specific long-term site in the report, it contains no such guidance. As I explained to the commission, communities such as Prairie Island, the City of Red Wing, and neighboring cities like Hastings need a viable site to which they can send nuclear waste for the safety and security of their residents.

While I agree with the commission’s findings underscoring the need for prompt action on a long-term storage disposal, it is disappointing that President Obama prohibited the commission from reviewing the merits of Yucca Mountain.

On Wednesday, at a hearing with leaders of the Blue Ribbon Commission, Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy John Shimkus (Ill.) summed this situation up well: “There are possibly no other 230 square miles in the world that have been examined and re-examined more by America’s greatest scientific minds than Yucca Mountain.”

Unlike most things in a broken Washington, this isn’t a partisan issue. Many colleagues on both sides of the political aisle share my belief that storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in an isolated, military secure location, in a facility designed for permanent storage, is better than leaving it where it currently sits: near our communities and families. I will continue to work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to ensure the safety of these communities.

John Kline

Member of Congress

Tags: letters to the editor, opinion, hastings, minnesota, spiral