Nevada’s Reid moves to ensure nuclear dump remains dead

WASHINGTON — Amid action in Congress to intensify the fight against Islamic State militants, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid found time Tuesday for an issue closer to home: ensuring that a nuclear waste dump in his home state of Nevada remains mothballed even after the government has spent $15 billion on it.

Reid devoted floor time to confirming two nominees to the agency that oversees the nation’s nuclear reactors. That means a Democratic-appointed majority will weigh any further steps related to creating a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The confirmations come as Republicans have begun talking about trying to revive the Yucca Mountain project if they retake the Senate in November. The Obama administration, under pressure from Reid, abandoned the project early in the president’s first term, leaving tens of thousands of tons of spent fuel sitting at nuclear reactors around the country with nowhere to go.

“There’s been a huge investment made there and we’ve got to find a solution to store nuclear waste,” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D. “One difference I can tell you for sure is that we’ll have votes on it. Whether we can advance it or not remains to be seen.”

Reid vowed Tuesday that Yucca Mountain, which he’s spent years working against and can take almost single-handed credit for derailing, would stay dead.

“Yucca Mountain is all through,” he told reporters. “As long as I’m around, there’s no Yucca Mountain.”

Senate Republicans would face an uphill fight to revive Yucca Mountain even if they do win back a majority in November, something that’s far from assured. The Obama administration has ended the Energy Department’s work on the project and shut down funding, and many of the government scientists who focused on the issue have moved on. Even as minority leader, Reid would retain significant influence to block action.

But having a potentially sympathetic majority on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission couldn’t hurt. Over Republican opposition, the Senate confirmed the nominations of Jeffery Martin Baran and Stephen G. Burns Tuesday, bringing its composition to three Democratic appointees and two appointed under a Republican administration.