Yucca Mountain

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act, amended in 1987, designated Yucca Mountain as the national repository for high level nuclear waste in the United States. After passage of that act, the United States spent $9 billion building the Yucca Mountain facility and putting in place every possible safeguard. Congress voted on this issue many times, and for over 20 years has voted to continue funding this project and developing it. This year, after considerable time and debate, Congress voted not to change or amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and to continue to legislate that Yucca Mountain will be the national repository for nuclear waste, and appropriated money for this effort.

But this is not a nation built on laws from our legislative branch any more- our nation is turning into a dictatorship of tyranny under Obama. Obama declared that the policy will change, that the Yucca Mountain facility will no longer be considered as a site to store our waste, and that from now on, he is calling the shots in our nation, not Congress. He openly defied Congress and his energy secretary, Steven Chu, has mocked efforts by Congress to have him follow the laws of our nation with regards to this issue.

There is no real backup plan advanced either- Obama in all his brilliance is putting together a 'blue-ribbon' panel to produce a report on what to do with the nuclear waste that is piling up in our nuclear facilities, but nothing will come of this effort and 4 years from now, we'll just have more nuclear waste building up in temporary on-site storage's that were never designed or meant to house spent nuclear material for long periods safely. Obama's policies will hurt the security and environment of our nation, and he is putting these policies in place in clear violation to the laws and policies that Congress has legislated this very year.

The shutting down of the Yucca Mountain project will cost jobs (already thousands are being laid off in Nevada because of this policy decision), will cost energy companies money (they paid billions of their own money for this project and now will have to pay billions more for unsafe temporary storage of spent nuclear waste), and will lead to lower investment in clean and safe nuclear energy (because there is no place to store the waste).

Under George W Bush, thousands of studies were conducted on this issue and extensive research was produced, and after analyzing that data, Congress continued to vote to fund the Yucca Mountain facility and advance its mission of storing waste. But Obama radically altered this policy only two months into office (in March 2009), with no new data, no new studies, and no real reasons presented for the change. It is suspected that the move came as payback to soon-to-be ex-Senator Harry Reid, of Nevada, and as payback to extreme environmental groups that do not support any energy creation, even if it is clean and safe nuclear energy.

You Senators and Congressmen should be contacted about this issue and made aware that the Obama administration has ignored Congress and changed policies and abandoned $9 billion in spending for no good reasons. And if they don't act on this issue and others like it, they should be thrown out of office in 2010.