NRC Overturns Obama's Diktat that Yucca Mountain Not be Used for Nuclear Waste

Obama's efforts to play dictator on behalf of the British Empire took another hit last week when three administrative judges within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled that the President can not ignore a law passed by the Congress in 1987 designating Yucca Mountain, Nevada, to be the repository for nuclear waste from nuclear power and nuclear weapons operations in the U.S. The panel found that: "Unless Congress directs otherwise, [Department of Energy] DOE may not single-handedly derail the legislated decision-making process by withdrawing the (Yucca repository) application. DOE's motion (to withdraw the application) must therefore be denied."

The ruling added that the DOE had weakened its arguments by "conceding that the application is not flawed nor the (Yucca) site unsafe.... Given the stated purposes of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and the detailed structure of that legislation, it would be illogical to allow DOE to withdraw the application without any examination of the merits," the judges found. The DOE is appealing.

Of course, the real issue is that the United States shut down the reprocessing of spent fuel in the 1970s, thus ensuring that so-called "waste" would become a political deterrent to expanding nuclear power. Spent fuel isn't "waste" — almost 97% of it can be recycled into new fuel for power reactors, which is exactly what the Malthusians feared would happen. (The remaining 3% can be "mined" for valuable radioisotopes for medicine and industry.) Instead of burying this resource, we should be reprocessing it, as other nuclear countries do.

Nonetheless, the NRC ruling is a slap in the face to the anti-nuclear mob under Prince Philip, who arrives tomorrow in New York City with the Horse-Faced Queen, and is also a blow to Sen. Harry Reid. Reid has been the champion of the fear campaign waged to stop the planned nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, pushing Obama and Energy Secretary Chu to ignore the Congressional mandate. Reid said: "Nevadans can rest assured that as the Majority Leader of the Senate, I will continue working with President Obama and Secretary Chu to ensure Nevada never becomes the nation's nuclear dumping ground.... I will continue to ensure that this dangerous project never comes back to life."

The Federal government has spent more than $10 billion to develop the Yucca repository.

The legal ruling against the President from the British Empire applies as well to Obama's illegal ruling to shut down the manned space program.