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State Representative Joe Atkins
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-4192
For more information contact: Matt Swenson 651-297-8406
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HOUSE COMMITTEE TO DISCUSS PROPOSED NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE COMMISSION
ST. PAUL, MN – Since the early 1980s, Minnesota ratepayers have paid more than $375 million in fees to the federal government’s Nuclear Waste Fund for the construction of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility in Nevada. The facility was to begin accepting nuclear waste, including Minnesota’s waste, no later than January 31, 1998.
More than a decade after the facility was planned to be finished, Yucca Mountain remains an empty cave. While a growing amount of nuclear waste accumulates in temporary casks here in Minnesota, Minnesota ratepayers continue to pay $14 million annually in fees to the Nuclear Waste Fund.
State Rep. Joe Atkins, chair of the Commerce and Labor Committee in the Minnesota House of Representatives, has introduced legislation (HF2440) that would redirect half of those fees to create a newly proposed Minnesota Nuclear Waste Storage Commission and escrow the other half until a federal nuclear waste facility is finished. Under the bill, the Commission would be responsible for ensuring the state’s public safety needs are met concerning nuclear waste storage in Minnesota.
Members of the House Commerce and Labor Committee will discuss the proposal at a legislative hearing at 10:00am on Monday, January 25, in Room 10 of the State Office Building.
WHO: State Rep. Joe Atkins
House Commerce and Labor Committee
WHAT: Legislative hearing to discuss the safe storage of spent nuclear fuel in Minnesota
WHERE: State Office Building, Room 10
WHEN: Monday, January 25
10:00am
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