Senate Could Soon Approve Yucca Nuclear Landfill

Date: July 4, 2002

Source: News Room

The U.S. Senate seems ready to give final congressional approval to President George W. Bush's decision to bury nuclear waste from across the nation in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Unofficial head counts show a majority of the Democrat-led Senate supports the proposal to put the nation's first permanent nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Approval would be a major victory for the Bush administration and the nuclear power industry, which sees the $58 billion permanent disposal site as a key to a sound energy policy. But it would be a serious defeat for the state of Nevada and environmentalists, who argue the facility, along with shipments of nuclear waste to it, would pose an unacceptable danger. The Bush administration contends $4 billion in studies over the past two decades have shown Yucca Mountain to be a safe and sound site for a nuclear waste repository.

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