Nevada’s two U.S. senators are making another high-stakes attempt to erase Yucca Mountain from the nation’s nuclear waste map, introducing legislation that would permanently block the desert site from becoming a repository. The move comes as the Trump administration courts other states willing to host nuclear facilities and radioactive waste in exchange for federal investment and jobs.
Sen. Jacky Rosen and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto introduced the Jobs, Not Waste Act in the Senate, according to the Las Vegas Sun. The bill would repeal the federal law designating Yucca Mountain as the nation’s nuclear waste repository, bar the site from future consideration and require the Department of Energy to withdraw its licensing proceeding before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. There is no companion measure in the House yet.
The proposal would also direct the Office of Management and Budget to study whether Yucca Mountain could support other job-producing uses, including a secure data center, defense facilities, renewable energy development or scientific research. An earlier Senate version of the measure, published by the U.S. Government Publishing Office, called for environmental reclamation and mitigation at the site after the licensing process is terminated.
Washington’s New Nuclear Push Raises The Stakes
The timing is not accidental. Five states — Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Utah and Idaho — have agreed to explore accepting nuclear waste as part of a federal effort to expand civilian nuclear power and create thousands of jobs, the Associated Press reported. The proposed facilities would address more than 95,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste currently stored around the country, a national problem Hoodline previously described as a long-running disposal dilemma.
Meanwhile, the Energy Department continues to maintain an active Yucca Mountain environmental record, including an April 2026 supplement analysis tied to the proposed repository. That does not mean waste is headed to Nevada, but it gives Rosen and Cortez Masto fresh reason to argue that the project is not legally dead simply because construction and major funding stopped years ago.
Why Yucca Mountain Is Still In Federal Law
Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the Department of Energy is responsible for developing a deep geologic repository, while Yucca Mountain remains the primary site named in federal law, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The site is roughly 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, putting a national waste fight close enough to matter in the Las Vegas Valley.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission describes the Yucca Mountain licensing case as a currently suspended adjudicatory proceeding, rather than a fully erased one, according to the NRC. That legal limbo is precisely what the Nevada senators want to end, with Cortez Masto saying Nevada “cannot and will not” house the nation’s nuclear waste and Rosen warning that Nevadans will not allow Yucca Mountain to be revived, as reported by the Las Vegas Sun.
The bill faces the usual congressional obstacle course, including committee consideration and the need for House action before it could reach President Donald Trump’s desk. For Nevada, though, the message is familiar and blunt: even as Washington searches for new places to put the country’s nuclear waste, Yucca Mountain remains the site state leaders are trying to remove from the conversation for good.
