Discussion about Yucca Mountain just won’t quit, but it doesn’t seem to be progressing much, either—a good sign for the proposed nuclear waste repository’s opposition. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals turned down “petitioners’ request that the court direct the NRC to act on the Bush Administration-era license application to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain,” according to a statement from Sen. Harry Reid’s office.
Reid remarked on the decision, saying, “Today is a good day for Nevada and the entire country. The Court has declined to compel the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to continue licensing work on Yucca Mountain against the will of Congress and the administration. … The Nuclear Waste Policy Act has been a miserable failure because 25 years ago, Congress chose to undermine the spirit of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and allowed our government to engage in the brutalization of science. That is how we got Yucca Mountain.”