WASHINGTON — Nevada’s bipartisan congressional delegation united Wednesday against a bill to revive the licensing process on an Energy Department application to open Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository.
The state’s lawmakers also tried unsuccessfully to shape the bill through amendments.
Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., had supported the licensing process. But he told the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday that he would vote against the bill after the House Rules Committee declined to allow a vote on his amendment, which sought an array of items including a new ZIP code for Storey County.
The Rules Committee allowed only one amendment from the Nevada delegation — language by Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., to require consensus-based siting for permanent repositories.
She convinced the Rules Committee that lawmakers should vote on whether consensus-based siting should be required, similar to the provision for interim-based siting.
On the House floor Wednesday, Titus said allowing consensus-based siting would move the process forward in selecting storage sites in states that want the waste.
To read the full article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal by Gary Martin, please click here.
