Boehner: GOP ready to revive Yucca

House Minority Leader John Boehner made headlines this week when he called for President Barack Obama to fire Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers.

But for Nevadans, there was a buried news nugget in the presentation the Ohio Republican gave to the City Club of Cleveland.

In answer to a question, the top House Republican indicated a GOP-led House of Representatives would revive the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste plan.

Here is the audio, starting with the questioner and including Boehner expanding on GOP energy policy generally.

Here is the specific exchange:

Q: The only repository for nuclear waste planned or conceived or developed in this country is Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and it is stopped dead in its tracks by Harry Reid. If the Republicans can take back Congress, what position would the party take on opening Yucca Mountain so our nuclear reactors have someplace to put their waste?

BOEHNER: Most Republicans have supported Yucca Mountain for the 20 years that I've been there and the American people would be shocked to know how much nuclear waste is laying just miles from their home. It's laying at every nuclear plant around the country and why? Because we can't get Yucca Mountain finished because it's not politically correct. We've invested tens of billions of dollars in a storage facility that's as safe as anything we're going to find."

Boehner went on to say that even if nuclear waste is not stored underground "then why wouldn't we as a country begin to reprocess much of this nuclear waste, where you can reduce the waste by about 90 percent."

Blogger Jed Lewison, on the liberal Daily Kos site, said Boehner's remarks on Yucca Mountain amounts to a "political gift" to Reid, giving him an opportunity to stress one of his differences with GOP challenger Sharron Angle.