Move to fund Yucca gets support

A move by a Washington state senator to get the Yucca Mountain waste repository back on track is receiving widespread, bipartisan support in South Carolina.

Sen. Patty Murray, D- Wash., announced this week that she will introduce an amendment today to reinstate funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

Murray's amendment would add $200 million to continue the licensing application process, a cost which she said should be offset by an across-the-board reduction in the Department of Energy budget.

"I am thrilled," said Congressman Joe Wilson, R-S.C. on Wednesday. "This re-enforces that this is truly a bipartisan concern."

Wilson said if such a measure came to the House, he would "certainly" vote for it.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn felt similarly, and said he would support the measure if it reached the House. He said he has made his position clear as a supporter of the Yucca project.

"Now we see clearly that at every level it is bipartisan," Wilson said. "In Aiken with the County Council, at the state level and with the South Carolina federal delegation."

Opposition to the Obama administration decision to halt the licensing process for the Yucca project is nothing new.

Recently, a letter opposing the move was signed by dozens of legislators from both houses, including the entire South Carolina delegation.

Aiken County and the states of South Carolina and Washington are litigating whether the license application could be withdrawn.

"I believe the Obama administration made a serious mistake when it zeroed out funding for Yucca Mountain," Murray told a subcommittee Tuesday. "Over the last 30 years, independent studies, Congress and previous administrations have all pointed to, voted for and funded Yucca Mountain as the nation's best option for a nuclear repository. And in concert with those decisions, billions of dollars and countless work hours have been spent at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in my home state and at nuclear waste sites across the country ... and now the Obama administration has said that Yucca isn't a 'workable option.' Well, I'm not sure what that means."

Murray said that when she posed a question to Energy Secretary Steven Chu as to why Yucca Mountain was not "workable," he could not give her one.

"Congressman (Gresham) Barrett is a firm advocate of the Yucca Mountain project and applauds Senator Murray's efforts to secure the funding necessary to keep this project moving forward," according to a statement from Barrett's spokesperson, Emily Tyner. "Temporary nuclear waste holding facilities, such as the Savannah River Site, were not intended to store nuclear waste indefinitely. Therefore, it is extremely important the federal government continues to uphold Yucca Mountain's status as a permanent storage site for nuclear waste."

Messages requesting comment from Sen. Jim DeMint and Sen. Lindsey Graham were not returned Wednesday.

Contact Mike Gellatly at mgellatly@aikenstandard.com.