Republicans seek release of Yucca Mountain report
Republican leaders on the House Science Committee are calling on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to release a Yucca Mountain safety report they suggest has been suppressed within the agency.
The lawmakers asked NRC commissioners in a letter to make the document public by Feb. 24 in the spirit of a pledge by President Barack Obama to make his administration "the most open and transparent in history."
The letter is the latest move by newly empowered Republicans to challenge the Obama administration's termination of the Nevada nuclear waste project. New House leaders continue to discuss plans for hearings on Yucca Mountain although none have been scheduled yet.
The missive was sent to NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko and the four other agency commissioners by House Science Committee chairman Ralph Hall, R-Texas, vice chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and subcommittee chairmen Paul Broun, D-Ga., and Andy Harris, R-Md.
The lawmakers said they want to see Volume 3 of the Yucca Mountain safety evaluation report that was being prepared by NRC staff as part of its evaluation of the proposed nuclear waste repository.
The volume was expected to contain the staff's evaluation of whether the repository would work as once advertised by the Department of Energy to prevent highly radioactive particles from decaying nuclear fuel from escaping into the environment.
That was once the key question surrounding the project but increasingly has seemed like a moot point as the administration, with an assist from Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has ended funding for the program and shifted policy away from the Nevada site.
Volume 3 of the safety report was scheduled to be released last November. But in October, Jaczko signed off on a controversial directive instructing agency staff to begin phasing out its work on the repository, and the safety report was shelved.
Jaczko, a physicist and former Reid adviser who was installed as chairman by Obama, subsequently said "the bulk of the information will be made public" but "that's an effort that will take some degree of time."
