December 12, 2007

Washington

, DC

—

U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada released the following statement today after the presiding judges approved the Department of Energy’s (DOE) certification of the Licensing Support Network (LSN) for the Yucca Mountain.  This ruling is the result of a hearing held in Las Vegas last week.

“I’m disappointed the judges for the National Regulatory Commission have decided in favor of the Department of Energy and allowed the LSN to be certified.  It is clear that the LSN is not complete and that DOE is playing hide the ball with key documents in order to prevent the State of Nevada from having all the information it needs to oversee and challenge the license application process.   DOE knows that they need to cheat and hide information because they know they will lose on substance in the end.  It is time for the DOE to stop playing games with the most dangerous substance on the face of this earth and end its failed pursuit of Yucca Mountain so that we can move on to resolving the underlying problem of what to do with our country’s nuclear waste.  I will continue working to ensure the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain never becomes a reality.” The LSN is a database of documents that may be used as evidence during the license application process and must be made available to the public. This database must be certified as complete at least 6 months before the license application for construction at Yucca Mountain can be submitted to the NRC.