"Sound politics," as your Dec. 1 article "Obama's Nuclear Reservations" described it, is actually what created the $9 billion hole in the side of Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Back in 1987, politically powerful members of Congress managed to steer the nuclear-waste repository away from their states and directly into Nevada. Science had nothing to do with the selec­tion, but science and common sense will prevail. The reasons for ending the tax­payer boondoggle called Yucca Mountain are plentiful: years of flawed science; un­realistic assumptions about costs conserv­atively predicted to hit $100 billion; and the egregious error of burying waste that could potentially, with American innova­tion, be less dangerous and even turned into energy. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has stated that spent nuclear fuel can be stored safely on site for at least 100 years in dry cask storage. That leaves plenty of time to fund and develop new technologies to safely manage nuclear waste. Our country is not so flush with endless funds or energy that it would make any sense to permanently bury al­most $100 billion and a potential energy source. Let's leave the waste where it is for now and invest a fraction of that money in studying safe and common-sense alterna­tives to a national repository. We're confi­dent the payoff will be worthwhile for all Americans.

Sen. John Ensign (r-nev.)
Sen. Harry Reid (d-nev.)