Nevada’s Republican Governor, Brian Sandoval, is doubling down on efforts to fight the reopening of the nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain.
Fresh off a trip to Washington D.C. Governor Sandoval met with reporters last week to break down several meetings with key members of President Trump’s cabinet including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.
While the Governor broached topics like environmental protection, recreational marijuana and infrastructure, Yucca Mountain may have been among the Sandoval’s chief concerns. He say’s the site is not safe for nuclear storage.
"This is a faulty site," explains Sandoval. "It cannot geologically isolate the waste. It is a waste of time. It is a waste of resources. It is a waste of taxpayer money,"
Efforts to reopen the site seem to be on the rise. Recently, President Donald Trump proposed a budget that included funding for the project. There’s also a federal lawsuit coming out of Texas that looks to force the reopening Yucca Mountain.
Sandoval says he spoke with Secretary Perry, who was the Governor of Texas, and that he’ll use every legal tool available to him to oppose the site.
"I mean this has been going on since the eighties and we've been there,” Sandoval says. “We’ve done that and we'll continue to do that. [It's] just something that keeps coming back and I have 20 more months as governor and I'm going to give it everything we have and continue this fight."
While it appears that Sandoval did not get any concrete reassurances that federal agencies will not seek to reopen the site, the Governor did say he felt the administration deserved an A-plus in terms of how they are working with the Silver State.
