Heller predicts new move to build Yucca Mountain after Reid retires
U.S. Sen. Dean Heller thinks there will be a new effort to kick-start the Yucca Mountain Project after one of its most powerful and outspoken opponents, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, leaves office at the end of the year.
Heller, speaking at a Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce luncheon Thursday, said some members of Congress see the Nevadan’s exit as an opportunity to build the high-level nuclear waste repository in Nevada, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Heller, R-Nev., said the push for the long-debated and hotly contested repository never really disappeared under the strong opposition from Reid, at one point considered the most powerful Democrat in the nation, and then President Barack Obama. Some current members of Congress are there “for only one purpose,” he said: to get the site up and running.
He named Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., whom he called a friend, as one of those members.
“His whole purpose of being in Washington, D.C., is to try and cram this Yucca Mountain down our throat,” Heller told reporters after the luncheon.
Heller lauded the efforts of U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., for her continued fight against Yucca Mountain, while adding that he thinks some of his fellow Nevada Republicans, without naming all of them, are getting “soft” on the issue.
“It isn’t just (Rep. Cresent Hardy). There’s other members of our delegation that are getting a little bit soft,” Heller said.
Reps. Joe Heck, who is in a tight race for Reid’s open Senate seat against Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, Cresent Hardy and Mark Amodei have all recently said that they are open for discussions about the issue.
“I know myself and Congresswoman Titus and others know that this is a big deal for the state of Nevada and we’re gonna do everything we can to stop this,” Heller said.
Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638. Find @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.
