May 7
The Obama administrationīs proposed 2010 budget unveiled May 7 calls for
the smallest budget in the history of the decades old Yucca Mountain nuclear
waste repository project.
The budget calls for the Energy Department to spend less than $197 million
on the Yucca Mountain project in 2010, a reduction of more than $90 million
from last year.
The reduction in funding represents the Obama administration fulfilling its
promise to scuttle plans for the repository, said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.,
one of the projectīs most vocal critics. The Energy Department had been
building a repository in the Nevada desert about 90 miles northwest of Las
Vegas that would become home to the nationīs supply of spent nuclear fuel
from power plants around the country. Reid and others in the Nevada
congressional delegation, along with environmentalists and others in
Congress, have been battling the plan.
Contact Waste & Recycling News senior reporter Bruce Geiselman at
330-865-6172 or bgeiselman@crain.com
w w w . w a s t e r e c y c l i n g n e w s . c o m
copyright 2009 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved.