July 2, 2018

Las Vegas, NV – Today Representative Dina Titus of Nevada’s First Congressional District released the following statement in response to Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner David Wright’s refusal to recuse himself in proceedings regarding Yucca Mountain. The refusal comes after the State of Nevada, a party to the Yucca Mountain licensing process, filed an 89 page request urging the Commissioner to recuse or disqualify himself based on past comments, associations, and work to advance the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. 

“Considering the number of individuals in the Trump Administration with conflicts of interest it should come as no surprise that one of the leading advocates for turning Nevada into the nation’s nuclear waste dump would refuse to acknowledge his long-standing bias,” said Congresswoman Titus. “When he was first nominated I called on the Senate to reject his approval for this very reason. This is just the latest example of how this entire process has been rigged to license Yucca Mountain no matter what.” 

Commissioner Wright has spent more than two decades working in both the public and private sector advocating for the nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain. As founding chair of the Yucca Mountain Task Force (2005-2010), Commissioner Wright stated that Nevada’s objections to the project were based on, “one state’s myopic resistance.”In the same statement Commissioner Wright stated the overriding objective of the group he founded was, “to accomplish the construction and operation of a safe Federal facility for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.”