Senate chairman delaying Yucca Mountain fight as long as possible

WASHINGTON — A Senate fight might be brewing over Yucca Mountain, but just not yet.

The energy and water subcommittee chairman, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., on Tuesday unveiled a 2016 spending bill for the Energy Department that contains $70 million for various nuclear waste programs.

But it has nothing to revive the controversial Nevada waste site, and Alexander said he wants to postpone battles over Yucca as long as possible, until the energy and water appropriations bill reaches the Senate floor or even later.

“We’ve asked senators to hold their amendments … if they are controversial we will ask them to offer them on the floor and we expect them to do that,” he said. “If we have an amendment on Yucca Mountain it should be offered when the energy and water bill is on the floor.”

Alexander supports Yucca but Senate aides said the move is part of a strategy to delay as long as possible a showdown with Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Dean Heller, R-Nev., over the project that President Barack Obama put in mothballs and they want to keep that way.

Heller said he planned to speak with Alexander this week about Yucca Mountain.

“I told him we have to have a conversation about this,” Heller said. “Obviously if it’s an amendment process and it’s on the floor, some of us in our delegation will have a chance to push back against it.”

Heller said Yucca Mountain is not a partisan issue.

“There is Democratic support and Republican support for Yucca right now, and our job is to take the president at his word that this is a project that is dead,” Heller said.

The Republican-controlled House this month approved its version of the energy and water bill that contain $175 million for Yucca Mountain, with $150 million for the Energy Department and $25 million for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

This is the first year since 2006 that Republicans have held a Senate majority along with it the ability to write appropriations bills.

No senator has yet come forward to propose adding money to the bill for Yucca. Some lobbyists and congressional officials believe the issue might not get settled until the House and Senate negotiate a final version of the energy bill later this year.