White House wants to entice ‘willing states’ to take nation’s nuclear waste with promises of economic boost

The plan could spur construction of ‘advanced reactors, data centers, and manufacturing facilities,’ according to the Trump administration

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The White House reportedly wants Congress to change federal law so "willing states" can store the nation's nuclear waste — and potentially boost their economies as a result.

A leaked document circulating on Capitol Hill details an administration proposal to replace the abandoned plan to stash radioactive refuse deep inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain , according to Politico .

It would allow the Energy Department to authorize the construction and operation of so-called nuclear life-cycle innovation campuses where waste could be stored for reprocessing "in willing states," Politico said.

The document reportedly also dangles the notion that creating the campuses would lead private industry to build "advanced reactors, data centers and manufacturing facilities" there.

“Change in legislation is a must,” an unidentified nuclear industry official told Politico . “Current law only allows the federal government to dispose of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and only allows money to be collected and spent for Yucca Mountain.”

In a Tuesday statement to The Independent , the White House didn't deny the Politico report, with a spokesperson saying, "The Trump administration continues to prioritize advancing civilian nuclear energy."

The Energy Department also announced Tuesday that it had selected five states — Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah — as potential hosts of the proposed nuclear campuses.

"These campuses will be massive generators of economic growth, create thousands of high-paying jobs, and be crucial to unleashing America’s nuclear renaissance," Wright said in a prepared statement.

President Donald Trump last year issued a series of executive orders aimed at boosting U.S. nuclear power production, including one that calls for quadrupling capacity — to 400 gigawatts — by 2050 through “emerging technologies to safely accelerate the modeling, simulation, testing, and approval of new reactor designs.”

On Friday, he announced that four new reactors had met a July 4 deadline to begin operating and said America was “leading the world in pioneering the next generation of nuclear power,” PBS reported.

Congress designated Yucca Mountain, located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the only potential site for a national nuclear-waste repository in 1987.

But the $8 billion project faced fierce opposition in Nevada, and then-President Barack Obama effectively killed it in 2009 when he made good on a campaign promise and cut funding for it from his budget proposal.

President Donald Trump repeatedly tried to revive the plan during his first term in office, but he gave up in February 2020, saying on social media, "Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain and my Administration will RESPECT you!" Reuters reported at the time.

The U.S produces about 2,000 metric tons of nuclear waste annually, with more than 95,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and waste from weapons production stockpiled in special pools or dry casks at 79 sites in 39 states, CNBC reported in November.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, estimated in 2018 that the total amount of spent nuclear fuel rods would cover the area of a football field and reach 36 feet high.

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