Heller pushes back on GOP’s pro-Yucca Mountain move

Nevada Republican Rep. Dean Heller pushed back today against U.S. House leaders who are moving to keep a door open to the Yucca Mountain program.

A 2011 spending bill that the House is expected to pass this week directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to put on hold its ongoing closeout of the controversial Nevada nuclear waste project.

The provision was inserted into the so-called continuing resolution by Republican leaders who have said the Obama administration's efforts to terminate the program would be a waste of 20 years and $10 billion already spent, and that Congress should have the final word on its fate.

Heller's message to party leaders on Yucca Mountain: Let it go.

"I continue to be disappointed at the House's insistence on reviving the Yucca Mountain boondoggle," the Nevadan said in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and House Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. "Given our current economic climate and our serious debt problems, our nation cannot afford to continue with this poorly managed project.

"The language in the continuing resolution is an unfortunate reflecting of an unwillingness to let go of its ill-conceived notion and move forward on a solution."

With the Department of Energy already bringing its work on Yucca Mountain to a halt, officials say the NRC's phase out of its program review could be the final nail.