Jobs, Not Waste Act of 2024
Key claim: This bill would bar the Energy Department from licensing, planning, or building a nuclear waste repository until the White House budget office reports to Congress on the jobs and economic effects of putting one at Yucca Mountain versus other sites.
Abstract
(S4324 · 118th Congress) Latest action (2024-05-14): Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Why this matters
Yucca Mountain remains the statutorily designated but politically stalled U.S. high-level nuclear waste repository, and proposals like this bill continue to condition any DOE progress on additional economic and siting analyses. If enacted, it would formalize a pause on repository licensing work pending an OMB comparative study, prolonging the interim storage status quo at reactor sites and shaping the broader spent-fuel management debate.