The cost of closing Yucca

South Carolina has a major interest in the opening of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and should pursue every avenue to reverse the administration's ill-considered decision to terminate the project.

The state's lawsuit against the Energy Department recognizes that the federal government must live up to its responsibility to safely dispose of the vast quantities of highly radioactive waste from its Savannah River Site.

Attorney General Henry McMaster also is acting on behalf of the state's ratepayers, who collectively have contributed $1.6 billion in surcharges on their electrical bills to develop the disposal site, which also will provide for storage of commercial radioactive waste.

The Obama administration's sudden decision to terminate the Yucca Mountain project is closely related to the re-election effort of Sen. Harry, D-Nevada. The Senate majority leader faces a strong GOP challenge, and DOE's termination of the Yucca project is expected to bolster his chances. It could be the most expensive Senate campaign ever -- at least in its related costs to the nation.

In addition to the $9 billion spent on the planning and construction of the Nevada project, there's another $13 billion in liability costs to commercial nuclear operators who were promised a disposal site by Congress no later than 1998.

And there is a greater cost to the nation's energy policy as nuclear power expansion is put on hold. That message was delivered to a congressional committee last month by a coalition of nuclear power industry spokesmen. The estimate of DOE liability, incidentally, was provided by the Congressional Budget Office.

The administration persists, however, in its efforts to shut down the Yucca Mountain project. A spokesman for the Energy Department expressed confidence that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would uphold the action, even though a legal panel of the NRC said the administration couldn't kill a project approved by Congress.

The Energy Department's expectation of a favorable ruling by the NRC probably isn't misplaced since the three most recently appointed NRC members were vetted for their opposition to Yucca Mountain before they took their seats. That's why South Carolina has reasonably requested that they recuse themselves.

The federal government legally committed itself nearly 30 years ago to provide a secure disposal site for nuclear waste related to the nation's Cold War defense production. Savannah River Site and the Hanford Reservation in Washington State are still waiting for that promise to be fulfilled.

Subsequently, Congress agreed to provide for disposal of the high-level radioactive waste produced as a byproduct of commercial generation of electricity. For more than 20 years, customers have been paying into that fund through a surcharge on their electrical bills.

Yucca Mountain has aptly been described as the most studied piece of real estate on the planet, in preparation for waste disposal at the remote site. For the administration to reverse course on these long-standing commitments is nothing short of a unilateral revocation of the government's acknowledged responsibility for nuclear waste.

Doing so to bolster the re-election prospects of one of the president's chief congressional allies is simply unconscionable.

The administration's irresponsibility can't be masked by the creation of a "blue ribbon committee" to further study the issue. Its cynical decision would derail a project essential for environmental safety and national security.