Obama budget cuts Yucca Mountain funding

The budget unveiled last week cuts off almost all funding for a permanent burial site for radioactive nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain site in the Nevada desert. Geoffrey H. Fettus with the Ploughshares-funded Natural Resources Defense Council, said that ultimately, the government will have to find a new site or sites for permanent storage of nuclear waste.  Robert Alvarez of the Ploughshares-funded Institute of Policy Studies agreed, but observed, "Everybody will just get angry if they learn their backyard might be a candidate site."