WASHINGTON— It’s not officially dead, but Yucca Mountain is facing a devastating funding cut in the new spending bill out this morning — a significant blow that the project director has said could cause him to miss the project’s crucial 2008 deadline.
Earlier this year I wrote about how we would know when the nuclear waste repository planned for 90 miles outside of Las Vegas was really dead.
One indicator would be a dramatic budget cut, another would be if the Energy department blew the June 2008 deadline for submitting its license application.
Now we seem closer to both.
The new funding level is buried in the omnibus year-end spending bill that Congress will be voting on today and tomorrow. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had been working behind the scenes to gut the funds.
Even more, the bill also directs the Energy department to start looking at alternatives by developing a plan to take custody of spent fuel at shut-down nuclear reactor sites — which is a step toward what Reid and the Nevada delegation have long sought.
For those of you who want the numbers: The project is now scheduled to be funded at $390 million in fiscal year 2008, $100 million less than President Bush had sought.

UPDATE: Reid calls Yucca ‘dying beast’
Reid’s staff put out a news release this morning saying he was successful in cutting an additional $54.5 million from the budget for Yucca. Today’s reduction brings the total cut this year to $104.5 million below the president’s request and last year’s funding level, Reid said.
“While the Department of Energy continues to move forward with a flawed license application on a scientifically and environmentally unsound project, I am proud that I was successful in cutting $104.5 million from Yucca’s Budget,” Reid said in prepared remarks.  “It is clear that the Yucca Mountain Project is a dying beast and I hope that this cut in funding will help drive the final nail into its coffin.”
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See more Sun stories about the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository.