Rep. John Shimkus on Yucca Mountain: Can You Hear Me Now?

Rep. John Shimkus

You can't find a more passionate supporter of the Yucca Mountain repository on Capitol Hill than Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.). For years, Shimkus has been a champion of electricity rate payers who have been dutifully contributing to the Nuclear Waste Fund only to see the Federal government continually fail to fullfill its obligations under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

Earlier today, the Chicago Tribune published an op-ed by the dogged Rep. Shimkus entitled, "Nuclear waster: The name is Yucca Mountain." Though the full text of the article is behind one of those dreaded paywalls, we've excerpted a few choice passages for your reading pleasure.

After spending $15 billion analyzing it [Yucca Mountain], the Department of Energy in 2008 finally filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission an application for a license to build and operate the project. Numbering nearly 10,000 pages, the application addressed every imaginable question of safety and environmental protection. 

Later that year the tide turned. Then-Sen. Barack Obama promised to do what he could to halt Yucca Mountain. Procedural maneuvers in Congress and at the NRC helped Obama make good on that promise, even though the votes were still there to support the project in the House and the Senate. 

Since then, some stakeholders and policymakers have asked, "Why don't we step back from the Yucca Mountain standoff and start looking for an alternative?" Because we share a sense of urgency to resolve the issue, my colleagues and I who have spent years working on this issue have carefully reviewed these ideas.

However, a close look confirms our belief that building a repository at Yucca Mountain would still be the fastest, best and most viable solution.

{...]

We are all frustrated by the failure to dispose of nuclear waste on the timetable provided in current law. However, assessing the pros and cons of interim storage, it does not seem to offer either economic or safety benefits. It would divert time, effort and resources away from actually solving the waste problem once and for all. Citizens want a sound nuclear policy and a safe solution for spent nuclear fuel disposal. The current law focusing on the Nevada project remains the best solution and, in time, the most likely to succeed.

Rep. Shimkus doesn't only deal with Yucca Mountain in print, he also makes a point of talking about it on the floor of the house with some frequency. Here's one statement from March 20, 2013:


There are others that you can find on the congressman's YouTube channel.