Las Vegas Sun62%
Nevada officials celebrate shift of American nuclear waste strategy away from Yucca Mountain 25%
By Ava Chatlosh40%
7/29/2026, 7:00:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Pessimism Bias, Optimism Bias, and Sunk Cost Effect, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 16.7% saturation with 155 hits. Analysis detected 1,184 faulty-reasoning hits from 926 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 37% and a BS Rank of 25% (16,727 of 22,239 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 75.20% of the article peer group.
Nevada officials are declaring victory over Yucca Mountain — even as some experts cautioned the federal government’s pivot away from the long-stalled and controversial nuclear waste repository may create new problems.
The U.S.
Department of Energy announced Tuesday that five states have agreed to accept nuclear waste from around the country in exchange for federal help to develop nuclear energy and create thousands of jobs, a shift that could permanently scrap plans for the controversial repository about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
“I am glad to see the Trump administration take a step toward acknowledging what Nevadans have known for years: Yucca Mountain is dead,” Sen.
Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said in a statement.
The states — Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Utah and Idaho — all have Republican governors who say they welcome the chance to help America reclaim its leadership in civilian nuclear energy.
The DOE first solicited applications in January, saying the effort was meant “to modernize the nation’s full nuclear fuel cycle and strengthen America’s leadership in advanced nuclear energy.”
The department received 28 applications from 26 states before narrowing the field.
The proposal calls for allowing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to revise how waste is classified for more flexibility and to revive a nuclear waste disposal fee that courts had previously blocked.
But to partner with the states, federal law would need to be revised.
Since 2011, the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations have mostly blocked or declined to pursue Yucca Mountain as an active repository.
In tandem with that, Congress halted funding for Yucca Mountain’s development and licensing.
Federal law, however, still designates it as the nation’s permanent nuclear waste repository.
In his first term, President Donald Trump requested $120 million to restart the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing of Yucca Mountain.
But his fiscal year 2021 budget request included no such funding.
The administration’s new proposal signals a different — and more welcome for most Nevadans — strategy.
The shift comes as Trump seeks to quadruple U.S. nuclear power production over the next 25 years, even as more than 95,000 metric tons of waste — mostly from reactors supplying about a fifth of the nation’s electricity — sit with no long-term disposal solution.
“It’s growing.
It’s expanding.
It’s not going to go away if we just ignore it,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Congress in April.
“If we want a nuclear future in our country, we simply have to fix this problem.”
Yucca Mountain was designated as the United States’ sole nuclear waste repository in 1987 through an amendment to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
Nevada lawmakers and other state officials famously referred to the decision as the “Screw Nevada” bill.
Legal challenges led to construction delays and the project stalled when Congress eliminated its funding in 2011, leaving the nation without a disposal site for nuclear waste.
“Until the law changes and a solution to nuclear waste storage is found, I will never stop fighting to keep nuclear waste out of Nevada and ensure any decision about nuclear waste has the consent of impacted communities,” Sen.
Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., wrote in a social media post after Tuesday’s news.
Not everyone agrees.
Charlotta Sanders, a UNLV associate research professor and nuclear engineer, and her husband, Mark Sanders, a nuclear law expert, argue the new approach has drawbacks.
In an interview, the couple said there’s “no safer place” in the U.S. to store nuclear waste than Yucca Mountain.
“I worked on Yucca Mountain for many years, and I joke that it is probably the most studied place on the planet Earth,” Charlotta Sanders said.
The site was studied for more than 20 years, according to a 2011 report from the Government Accountability Office, with roughly $15 billion invested.
Despite that investment, the project never won consent with a majority of Nevadans.
Opposition came from multiple directions, including concerns about transportation of the waste to Nevada.
The proposed rail and truck routes would have carried high-level radioactive materials through densely populated areas and near local tourist hubs — notably the Las Vegas Strip — where one accident could endanger millions.
The site also sits on Western Shoshone treaty land, and the Western Shoshone Nation opposed the project.
Nevada environmental groups also raised concerns, citing groundwater and transportation risks and the lack of tribal consent.
The Sanderses believe better public education about the project’s safety record might have won that consent.
They estimated that testing a new location for safety would take 10 to 15 years.
Mark Sanders also called for an independent federal body to enforce safety standards, cautioning that without one, economically struggling communities could be favored over safer sites — what he called a “race to the bottom.”
Charlotta Sanders added that multiple repositories nationwide would also raise transportation risks and require consent from every community along transport routes.
For now, the U.S. has no designated site for commercially spent nuclear fuel, which sits at more than 100 sites in 39 states in various structures and containers.
Where to permanently store that waste and additional waste that is still being produced remains unresolved.
Local leaders are adamant that Nevada isn’t the answer.
“Republicans and Democrats, local leaders, tribal nations and communities across Nevada have stood together in opposition to Yucca Mountain,” Rep.
Steven Horsford, D-Nev., said in a statement.
“Any attempt to force this project on our state ignores the will of Nevadans, disregards legitimate scientific and safety concerns, and threatens the communities that would bear the risk.”
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