JACKSON, Miss.–The third time is the charm, apparently, for a resolution that says the Miss. Public Service Commission is against any long-term storage of nuclear waste in the state.Northern District Commissioner Brandon Presley said Tuesday that the three commissioners all voted in favor of it, after turning it down twice before.
Presley said that makes the PSC the first state agency to go on record opposing any nuclear waste storage.
He made claims last year that “someone” in Mississippi in a position of authority was “playing footsie” with the federal government to try and start a project here similar to the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada, where the government had been studying and storing waste since 1982.
While there was an effort on the economic development side to study storing spent nuclear fuel rods, there was no clear trail from that proposal to the possibility of storing radioactive waste, and making Mississippi “America’s nuclear waste dump”, as Presley had alleged.
“I was proud to sponsor these resolutions that clearly say ‘no’ to the plans of the U.S.
Department of Energy and others to make Mississippi the nation’s nuclear waste dump,” said Presley. “Mississippians have paid $80 million to send nuclear waste to Nevada, and that’s where
it should go, period. I am shocked that the Department of Energy recently said that they
have continued a dialogue with officials in Mississippi related to this absurd idea.”
Presley said Tuesday’s vote came after word that Peter Lyons, an assistant secretary for nuclear
energy at the U.S. Energy Department, placed Mississippi on a short-list of potential
hosts, noting that the interest from some state actors has been very public.
The governor’s office reiterated to News Mississippi this morning that they also oppose any long-term nuclear storage.
