More unnecessary hyperbole over Yucca Mountain and nuclear waste

The headline of your lead article in Wednesday’s paper, “D.C. gets Yucca firestorm,” grossly mischaracterizes reaction to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s move to restart licensing of Yucca Mountain. It wasn’t a “firestorm.” It was a smoke screen.

The entire point of the licensing process is to determine the viability of a geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain. Yet, without having completed that process of analysis and evaluation by scientists and engineers, our Nevada politicians along with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., shout “disastrous,” “dead” and “risk.” Their penchant for hyperbole reveals their irrational attitudes.

Objections like these can hardly be considered some kind of incendiary eruption that will frighten federal institutions into dormancy. A more apt headline would characterize their reaction in terms of hysteria, as in “D.C. gets Yucca drama.”