Congressman Fred Upton (R-St. Joseph), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, today reiterated his call for the continued development of the Yucca Mountain repository for the safe, permanent storage of the nation’s spent nuclear fuel. Upton is a longtime supporter of safe nuclear power to meet the nation’s growing energy needs. His southwest Michigan district is home to the D.C. Cook and Palisades nuclear generating stations, which locally employ nearly 2,000 people and account for the largest revenue sources in Berrien and Van Buren counties, respectively.
Upton participated in a hearing held this morning by the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy to further examine the Obama administration’s hasty decision to shutter the Yucca fuel repository. Investigations into the administration’s termination of the project have already revealed significant internal legal and policy dissent from within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
“We in southwest Michigan are very familiar with the benefits of nuclear – as both a local job creator and a safe, reliable source of energy,” said Upton. “It is time to move nuclear storage away from our lakeshores to an isolated location in the Nevada desert. Developing a safe, permanent storage site for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel is essential to our energy security as well as our national security. Rather than temporarily storing spent nuclear fuel at locations across the country, we should be locking that material away at a secure, centralized location. There is no room for politics to factor into our nation’s nuclear policy.”
Today’s subcommittee hearing specifically focused on the questionable actions and possible political motivations of NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko as he sought to terminate the Yucca Mountain project. Testimony was provided by NRC Inspector General Hubert Bell, whose recent report exposes details of how Chairman Jaczko manipulated the decision-making process at NRC to sabotage the Yucca project. The hearing comes on the heels of a report released by the Government Accountability Office, which found that “social and political opposition to a permanent repository, not technical issues, is the key obstacle” concerning Yucca.
The proposed fuel repository at Yucca has been widely supported by the scientific community as a lasting solution to meet the nation’s long-term storage needs, and is the product of nearly three decades of research and investments of $15 billion.
