The political problems of the dump are highlighted by the Energy Department's fiscal 2006 budget released this month, which includes only $650 million for the project. That is half of earlier funding projections for the year. Nonetheless, Energy officials are publicly upbeat.
"In my view, there are a lot of positive things going on," said Ted Garrish, deputy director of the program at the Energy Department. The courts, for example, did not accept Nevada's argument that the whole project is unconstitutional, he said.
The federal government is in no position to abandon Yucca Mountain, given its decades-old promise to the nuclear power industry to find a place for nuclear waste. The utility industry has 66 pending lawsuits against the Energy Department for failing to abide by its agreements. By some estimates, the federal government could bear penalties and costs of $60 billion if Yucca Mountain is never built, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group representing the industry.
Already, utilities have won settlements of nearly $100 million from the Energy Department for its failure to open the dump by the original 1998 deadline, according to the institute.
"Utilities have paid $24 billion to the federal government, collected through electric bills, to dispose of this waste," said Rod McCullum, a senior project manager at the institute. "If you live in an area served by nuclear power plants, a portion of your bill went to the federal government for Yucca Mountain."
But another powerful and politically savvy industry -- the Las Vegas gaming industry -- hates Yucca Mountain.
When the site was first considered in the early 1980s and then selected as the single possible site for the dump in 1987, Las Vegas was a pale shadow of what it is today.
Few people anticipated the audacious growth that would occur at the gambling mecca.
More than a dozen super-sized resorts, starting with the Mirage, have opened since 1987, making the Strip home to eight of the world's 10 largest hotels. Gaming revenue has soared fourfold to more than $8 billion annually, while Clark County's population has tripled to 1.7 million. The county is gaining 4,000 residents per month. The convention and gaming industry has become an economic powerhouse on a national level.
