Congress needs to uphold the president's designation for a nuclear waste disposal site.
William T. McCormick Jr. is chairman and chief executive officer of Michigan-based CMS Energy Corporation, the parent holding company of Consumers Energy. He received a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969.
American citizens have an enormous stake in this question: Should a single state be able to over-ride national interests? The question is important because Nevada's governor indicated recently that he opposes President Bush's decision to designate that state's Yucca Mountain site as the logical national repository for spent nuclear fuel.
Very soon Congress will act on this issue as to whether the nation's high level nuclear waste should continue to be stored at 131 sites in 39 states around the country, or whether it should be permanently disposed deep underground at a single, secure, government-operated facility in a remote area of the Nevada desert. In the interest of security, economics, and common sense, it is important that Congress votes to uphold the president's scientifically based designation of Yucca Mountain as the nation's central nuclear waste disposal facility.
Since 1982, when Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the federal government has been studying what to do with the spent nuclear fuel from America's nuclear power plants and defense nuclear facilities. It is now time to move forward after 20 years and $7 billion in studies and testing. If Congress doesn't uphold the president's Yucca Mountain designation, then under the nation's nuclear waste law, we would have to start all over to find another suitable disposal site. We would also have continued nuclear waste storage indefinitely in above ground temporary storage facilities at 103 commercial nuclear plants and a number of military facilities in 39 states. The meticulous scientific study process, which supports the Yucca Mountain designation, would have been wasted and it may be a long time to solving a problem that should not be passed along to another generation.