Alliance for Nuclear Accountability * Clean Water Action * Friends of the Earth * Greenpeace * League of Women Voters of the United States * National Environmental Trust * Natural Resources Defense Council * Nuclear Information & Resource Service * Physicians for Social Responsibility * Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program * Sierra Club * Safe Energy Communication Council * U.S. Public Interest Research Group
As national environmental, public interest, safe-energy and consumer groups, we urge U.S. Senate opposition to the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump in the imminent vote on Senate Joint Resolution 34. This issue is one of our top priorities because the potential harm to human health and the environment from an ill-considered decision is so great. Our coalition will deliver to U.S. Senate offices today a statement from 260 groups from across the nation opposing Yucca Mountain, and will deliver to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle thousands of petition signatures opposing Yucca. Transporting 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste to a dump site at Yucca Mountain that cannot meet basic safety standards poses unacceptable threats to human health and the environment. Important scientific, ethical, environmental justice, and policy questions about the repository proposal remain unresolved. Moreover, the Department of Energy lacks a credible plan for transporting waste to Nevada. The risks of shipping thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste through 44 states, as currently proposed, cannot be justified. Also, Yucca Mountain would not solve the nation’s nuclear waste problem. U.S. Department of Energy officials have testified recently before Congress that even if Yucca Mountain were to open and fill to capacity, nearly as much waste as is currently stored on-site at reactors would still be stored at reactors across the country in the year 2036, due to newly generated waste. We therefore urge the U.S. Senate in the strongest terms to reject the Department of Energy’s premature and technically unfounded Yucca Mountain recommendation by voting “no” to Senate Joint Resolution 34.