Yucca Mountain

CARSON CITY – Gov. Brian Sandoval sent a letter to U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu today making it clear that he does not support any type of nuclear waste disposal or interim storage at Yucca Mountain.

CARSON CITY – Former U.S. Sen. and Nevada Gov. Richard Bryan today described Rep. Mark Amodei’s recent comments about Yucca Mountain not being dead as a site to dispose of the nation’s nuclear waste was as “unfortunate.”

CARSON CITY – When state Sen. Greg Brower asked the Attorney General’s office earlier this month about the $6 million in outside legal costs incurred so far in defending the state in a freeway construction dispute, he said his motives were purely fiscal in nature.

CARSON CITY – Speakers at the fifth and final public hearing to comment on a draft environmental statement that seeks to map the future of the former Nevada Test Site expressed a variety of concerns Wednesday, including a failure to adequately address contamination of groundwater at the site.
Another concern focused on an indication in the document for what is now called the Nevada National Security Site that a previous agreement with the state of Nevada to avoid metropolitan areas in the transportation of low-level radioactive waste to the site for burial will be abandoned.

In a long awaited ruling, the federal nuclear safety agency has said Nevada can close down Yucca Mountain once and for all.
The Obama administration had asked Congress to zero out the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) work on Yucca as a follow up to the prior  termination of funding at the Department of Energy (DOE) project. The NRC has directed that all project casework be wrapped up by the end of the month.

Robert Halstead has been named director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.That agency is responsible for fighting the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump in southern Nevada.Halstead replac...

CARSON CITY – Gov. Brian Sandoval today appointed Robert Halstead as executive director of the Agency for Nuclear Projects, the agency responsible for oversight of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. He will start in the job Sept. 19.
Halstead will replace Joe Strolin, who has been serving as acting director since January.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday the effort by House Republicans to revive the Yucca Mountain project are going nowhere.And as majority leader of the U.S. Senate, he has considerable say ove...

I have a great deal of respect for Tyrus Cobb and his long service to the country. But I have to respectfully disagree with his championing of the proposed Yucca Mountain project. As someone who ha...

Both Democrat Shelley Berkley and Republican Dean Heller today called on their fellow House members to drop the push to resurrect the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump project.President Obama, keeping a ...

By Andrew Doughman
RENO – President Barack Obama highlighted Nevada’s renewable energy sector today with a visit to the heat-to-energy company ElectraTherm, in northern Nevada.
In front of a backdrop of “green machines” Obama touted plans to end $4 billion in subsidies for oil companies in favor of providing incentives for renewable energy companies.

CARSON CITY – Recently announced U.S. Senate candidate Shelley Berkley spoke to the Nevada Legislature today, stressing education, infrastructure and energy independence as ways to create jobs and get the state back on track.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican who is evaluating a run for president in 2012, said today he would be willing to reconsider whether Yucca Mountain is a suitable site for the long-term disposal of nuclear waste.

My friend and fellow columnist Ty Cobb Sr. seems to think that the Japanese nuclear disaster makes the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump inevitable. I beg to differ, however, because I thi...

Nuclear industry spokespeople and some in Congress have been very vocal of late suggesting that the nuclear accident in Japan requires restarting the defunct Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository...

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – An organization that wants to see Yucca Mountain used as a temporary nuclear waste storage site with a research center to explore reprocessing has proposed an amendment to a bill in the Legislature to move its Energy Park idea forward.

By Elizabeth Crum / Nevada News Bureau
Mississippi’s sixty-third governor today visited Nevada, a state which has been called “the Mississippi of the west”* because of its largely unskilled workforce and poor public education system.

CARSON CITY – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a first-of-its-kind economic study today identifying stalled energy projects – including 10 in Nevada – that are costing billions of dollars in lost gross domestic product.
The study says the delays are costing the state’s economy $66.9 billion in GDP and that 86,700 jobs a year could be created in Nevada during the construction phase of the projects.

By Andrew Doughman / Nevada News Bureau
Gov. Brian Sandoval has appointed a veteran administrator to keep up the fight against placing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Southern Nevada.
Joseph C. Strolin, formerly a planning division administrator for the Agency for Nuclear Projects, has agreed to be acting director of the agency until the governor can find a permanent director.

CARSON CITY – Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval today said he is disappointed with an order from a Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel dismissing Nevada’s legal challenges to the high level nuclear waste repository proposed for Yucca Mountain.

CARSON CITY – A federal appeals court today lifted a stay on cases challenging the U.S. Department of Energy’s authority to withdraw its licensing application for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

By Sean Whaley /Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Reno Mayor Bob Cashell said this week he expects to see Harry Reid continue to help northern Nevada in a variety of ways now that he has won re-election in a bitterly contested Senate race.

If you place X's on a map of Nevada to mark areas used for nuclear testing and O's to mark areas examined as potential nuclear sites, you end up with a tic-tac-toe game board in the shape of the Silver State, says Western Nevada College Emeritus English Professor Michon Mackedon.

By Sean Whaley / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Nevada remains in limbo over the status of Yucca Mountain as a potential repository for the nation’s nuclear waste even with a work stoppage on the project review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission due to funding limitations, a state official says.

There are about a million people who know Kenny Guinn better than I do.

But it's that fact that makes the interactions I had with him so interesting.

As a political columnist, I took my fair share of shots at him, on issues like Yucca Mountain and his big tax rebate program. Besides sending his nuke dump point man out to counter my criticisms, he never held those against me.

Former Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, who guided Nevada from January 1999 through the end of his second term in 2006, died this morning of a heart attack in Las Vegas, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

CARSON CITY – A dozen Nevada government entities spent more than $1.7 million taxpayer dollars last year to hire lobbyists in Washington, DC and have racked up nearly $400,000 in expenses in the first quarter of this year, according to data gathered by the national group Center for Responsive Politics.

By Nevada News Bureau Staff
CARSON CITY – Nevada’s unemployment rate hit another record high in June, reaching 14.2 percent as 193,000 residents looked for work, a state agency reported today.

CARSON CITY – A representative of a group seeking to turn Yucca Mountain into an energy park said a ruling earlier this week halting the withdrawal of the application to license the site as a nuclear waste dump is a huge opportunity for Nevada.
“We are thrilled with the ruling,� said Randi Thompson with Nevadans 4 Carbon-Free Energy. “It’s huge for Nevada.�

CARSON CITY – A representative of a group seeking to turn Yucca Mountain into an energy park said a ruling earlier this week halting the withdrawal of the application to license the site as a nuclear waste dump is a huge opportunity for Nevada.
“We are thrilled with the ruling,” said Randi Thompson with Nevadans 4 Carbon-Free Energy. “It’s huge for Nevada.”