Reid, Heller ready to battle Yucca Mountain

With a change in U.S. Senate leadership after the midterm election, Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency chief Robert Halstead says he has been assured by the staffs of Nevada’s senators that both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., a member of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, remain strongly opposed to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project and are “well-positioned and working together to protect Nevada’s interests.”

Halstead made the observation before last week’s state Commission on Nuclear Projects meeting. The commission, with its chairman, former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, leading cheers, approved a 44-page report that was sent to Gov. Brian Sandoval and state lawmakers.

The annual assessment alerts them that the funding-starved Yucca Mountain project, which Reid had stymied during his eight-year reign as Senate majority leader, is not dead yet and they should press on with their opposition.

Otherwise the mountain 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas could be put back on track by the Republican-controlled Congress to entomb tens of thousands of tons of highly radioactive used fuel that is decaying while it continues to be stored temporarily at commercial power reactor sites in other states.

The federal government has spent roughly $14 billion of nuclear power ratepayers’ money studying Yucca Mountain for nearly a quarter of a century to determine whether it can contain spent fuel and highly radioactive defense wastes safely. Some of the money was used to dig a 5-mile exploratory tunnel.

If a license is granted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the Department of Energy’s repository after surviving court battles and at least 219 technical challenges by Nevada over perceived flaws with the site and design of engineered barriers, work to build it would be just beginning. Almost $100 billion would have to be spent on drilling 55 miles of drifts off the main emplacement tunnel. The cost probably would include building a new rail line to haul waste to the remote site.

— Keith Rogers

BUT IN WASHINGTON …

As Nevada leaders say they remain vigilant on Yucca Mountain, there are small signs the landscape might be shifting in Washington on the nuclear waste site.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., last week urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to move forward on considering a license for the Nevada site. Murray, who is up for re-election in 2016, represents the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, where the government has struggled for years to clean up Cold War-era nuclear bomb waste. The waste once was destined for Yucca Mountain.

With the work the NRC has put in already on a Yucca Mountain application and with billions of dollars spent at Hanford and other nuclear waste sites, “it is imperative that the Yucca Mountain licensing application is thoroughly considered by the NRC,” Murray said in a letter to NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane.

The letter from a senior Democrat serves as a reminder that the push to store nuclear waste in Nevada is not necessarily a partisan matter but rather pits the state against others that are holding radioactive material and want to get rid of it.

Murray also is in the Senate leadership. Her step away from Reid, who has worked to kill the Nevada site, garnered some notice in the nuclear industry and on Capitol Hill.

Observers are looking to see whether Reid, who lost some luster in the midterm elections and who will be in the minority in the next Congress, has lost a step on Yucca.

But it wasn’t the first time Murray has spoken out. In 2010, the last time she was up for re-election, she criticized the Obama administration’s shutdown of the Yucca site and sponsored an amendment that would have given the project $200 million to stay open. At the urging of Reid, Democrats killed it in the Appropriations Committee.

Reid’s office did not comment on the latest Murray letter.

— Steve Tetreault

ASSEMBLY DEMS: ORGANIZED FOR 2015

Assembly Democratic caucus leader Marilyn Kirkpatrick has announced the members of her leadership team for the 2015 session, naming Teresa Benitez-Thompson of Reno and Maggie Carlton of Las Vegas as co-assistant leaders to the minority party.

Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas, served as speaker in the 2013 session but will lose that post to Republicans in the upcoming session after the GOP took the majority in the Assembly for the first time since 1985.

“I am grateful to my colleagues for electing me as the Democratic leader going into the 2015 legislative session and am looking forward to working with both Assemblywoman Benitez-Thompson and Assemblywoman Carlton on moving our state forward,” Kirkpatrick said. “We have a lot of work to get done as a state. While we are hopeful for a session based in bipartisanship, everyone should know neither I nor my caucus will sit idly by and fail to stand up to extreme proposals.

“We will make sure to hold the majority party responsible for addressing the dire issues that face our state and governing in a manner that benefits all Nevadans, with an emphasis on working class families,” she said.

— Sean Whaley

NEW LEADERSHIP FOR MINING

Dana Bennett, the former regional director of the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development, has been named president of the Nevada Mining Association effective Dec. 1.

Bennett succeeds Tim Crowley, who announced earlier this year his decision to leave to create his own public affairs firm.

Bennett, owner of Bennett Historical Research Services, was named after candidate interviews last week.

“Dana’s experience, both in the Nevada Legislature and around the Nevada mining industry, has positioned her as a great fit for the trajectory of the association and the future of our industry,” said Tom Kerr, chairman of the association’s board of directors.

Bennett, who received her doctorate in history from Arizona State University, has an extensive history with the mining industry and the mining association itself, having represented the association in 2004 while with the government affairs firm R&R Partners.

“I will bring every minute of my experience in the public and private sectors to the presidency with me and put that experience to work for Nevada mining,” Bennett said.

Bennett previously worked as a principal research analyst with the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau, where she served as staff director for Nevada’s Legislative Committee on Public Lands. She has further experience in historical research and policy analysis with the Morrison Institute for Public Policy in Phoenix, as well as working directly with the Nevada governor’s office.

— Sean Whaley

Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Find him on Twitter: @KeithRogers2. Contact Capital Bureau reporter Sean Whaley at swhaley@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900. Find him on Twitter: @seanw801. Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760. Find him on Twitter: @STetreaultDC.