WASHINGTON (AP) _ For two decades, a ridge of volcanic rock 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas known as Yucca Mountain has been the sole focus of government plans to store highly radioactive nuclear waste.
Not anymore.
Despite the $13.5 billion that has been spent on the project, the Obama administration says it's going in a different direction.
It slashed funding for Yucca Mountain in its recently announced budget.
And on Thursday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a Senate hearing that the Yucca Mountain site no longer was viewed as an option for storing reactor waste, brushing aside criticism from several Republican lawmakers.
Instead, Chu said the Obama administration believes the nearly 60,000 tons of used reactor fuel can remain at nuclear power plants while a new, comprehensive plan for waste disposal is developed.
Chu's remarks touched off a sometimes testy exchange with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Obama's rival for the presidency last year, and provided the most definitive signal yet that the government's attempt to address the commercial nuclear waste problem is veering in a dramatically new direction.
At the hearing, McCain and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the decision not to pursue the Yucca Mountain project threatens the expansion of nuclear energy because the government can give no assurance on waste disposal.
``We've spent billions of dollars and many years preparing for Yucca Mountain to be our nation's nuclear waste site,'' Murkowski said. ``Closing Yucca Mountain sends an unmistakable signal to nuclear developers that they might not have a place to store their waste, making them less willing to develop new facilities.''
Congress in 1982 declared that the government must assume responsibility for reactor waste from commercial power plants.
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