Action urgently needed to block irradiated nuclear fuel consolidated interim storage facilities!

In the decades-long "game" of radioactive waste whack-a-mole, when the Yucca dump goes down (see related entry, below), proposed consolidated interim storage facilities (CISFs) pop back up with a vengeance.

(Proposed CISFs are very often environmentally unjust, radioactively racist. In the past, they targeted scores of Native American reservations. This time around, they target largely Hispanic communities in the Permian Basin, along the Texas/New Mexico border. The photo, below, was taken at a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) environmental scoping public comment meeting in Andrews, TX, re: the Interim Storage Partners CISF targeted at Waste Control Specialists, LLC located near there, right on the New Mexico border at Eunice.) 

In fact, in response to Trump's anti-Yucca dump tweet, the politically powerful chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee, the very pro-nuclear power U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (Republican-Tennessee), despite being a long-time proponent of both the Yucca dump and CISFs, cynically responded: "President Trump's decision to embrace alternatives to storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain is welcome news. If we want a future with nuclear power that produces clean, cheap, and reliable energy and creates good jobs that keep America competitive in a global economy, then we have to solve the nuclear waste stalemate. There is bipartisan support for allowing consolidated nuclear waste storage at private facilities, and I look forward to working with the president to solve this problem." (Emphasis added.)

There is the very real danger that Sen. Alexander will revise his bill, S. 1234, the Nuclear Waste Administration Act (co-sponsored by U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Republican-Alaska) and Dianne Feinstein (Democrat-California)), to remove Yucca dump advocacy, but to redouble CISF advocacy. There are also multiple bills in the U.S. House (the foremost of which is the STORE Act, H.R. 3136), also advocating CISFs. And there is the distinct risk that a U.S. House equivalent of S. 1234 itself could be introduced.  

What can you do? Please contact your U.S. Representative, and both your U.S. Senators. Urge them to oppose CISFs, as by blocking S. 1234, H.R. 3136, and any other congressional legislation that advocates de facto permanent, surface storage, "parking lot dumps," as currently targeted at southeastern New Mexico (Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance), and western Texas (Interim Storage Partners/Waste Control Specialists). You can be patched through to your congress members' D.C. offices by calling the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Learn more at our Centralized Storage website section.