Lawmaker says Trump win brings Yucca Mountain closer to opening

With Donald Trump moving into the White House and retiring Senate Democrat Harry Reid heading back to Nevada, a South Carolina congressman is optimistic the Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository soon could be back on the federal government's agenda.

Republican Joe Wilson told the Columbia, S.C., Rotary Club Monday that the president-elect's transition team has distributed a survey to Energy Department personnel about the long-delayed facility 90 miles north of Las Vegas that could host nuclear waste now held in South Carolina — something Nevada's Reid, the Senate's minority leader, long opposed.

"We've already put $1.5 billion into permanent storage there," Wilson said, adding he hopes the retiring Reid "goes (home) to his just reward in Las Vegas."

http://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/dec/13/lawmaker-says-trump-win-brings-yucca-mountain-clos/