NEI Nuclear Notes

So the AP wanted a story and by hell or high water, it got one: The Obama administration's decision to bypass Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository should give Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a boost in his bid for a fifth term. The action is not doing another endangered Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, any favors. That’s because the nuclear waste at Washington’s Hanford site was slated to go to Yucca Mountain and since Murray was fourth in line in the Senate leadership, she should have been able to – do something – about it. In Washington state, Republican rival Dino Rossi is questioning whether Murray has done enough to challenge Reid and President Barack Obama over Yucca Mountain. "She's No. 4 in leadership. It's not like she has no power," Rossi said. "She should be able to convince these folks that this is important." This seems a story about nothing at all. I get that Hanford is a perennial issue...

Ever since Energy Secretary Steven Chu set about closing Yucca Mountain, Congress members have been handing DOE staff – and Chu – considerable grief for the decision at virtually every hearing since then. So the recent decision that the used fuel repository’s license application cannot be withdrawn from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission seems a kind of vindication, reasserting Congressional will – the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 that, via a 1987 amendment, designated Yucca Mountain as the used fuel repository – over an executive decision. Drawing the lines between branches of government is, of course, a perpetual issue in American governance, but this decision seems clear cut: the Act and its amendment were passed by Congress and signed by President Ronald Reagan. Closing Yucca Mountain means overturning or further amending the Act – and no one seems eager to do either. So if Congress does feel vindicated, why not press the point ? Some 91 members of Congress on Tuesday...