Nevada senators, Rick Perry to tour site where plutonium stored

WASHINGTON — Nevada senators and Energy Secretary Rick Perry will tour the Device Assembly Facility at the Nevada National Security Site this week as part of a deal reached to move weapons-grade plutonium out of the state.

Perry and Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of the Nuclear National Security Administration, will join Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, both Democrats, at the facility on Friday, according to a source familiar with the tour.

Cortez Masto announced the tour last week when she disclosed the deal reached with Perry to remove from Nevada a half metric ton of plutonium shipped into the state from South Carolina.

According to Cortez Masto, Perry pledged to remove the plutonium between 2021 and 2026 and also gave assurances that no more plutonium from the Savannah River Site would be moved into Nevada.

In exchange, Cortez Masto lifted her hold on Trump administration nominees to the Department of Energy.

Perry assured Cortez Masto that the plutonium would be safely being stored at the Nevada facility, about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, until it could be shipped to a Department of Energy lab at Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Cortez Masto said last week she wanted to tour the facility to be sure the plutonium “is safely stored until it is moved out of Nevada.”

“That’s why I want to see it for myself,” she said.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.