New Contract Adds to Ever Growing Mountain of Radioactive Pork   

Congresswoman Shelley Berkley today (October 30, 2008)  questioned the value of a $2.5 billion contract awarded by the Bush administration for management services related to the proposed waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

 “This contract adds another $2.5 billion in radioactive pork to the mountain of waste that is the Bush-McCain Yucca dump plan,” said Berkley.  “While this announcement may be music to the ears of the nuclear industry and its army of high priced lobbyists, Nevada families remain overwhelmingly opposed to having toxic radioactive waste dumped on the doorstep of Las Vegas.”

The contract, awarded to USA Repository Services, is designed to help speed the $100 billion Bush-McCain Yucca Mountain dump plan.    

 “Like President Bush, John McCain is more worried about filling Yucca Mountain with nuclear waste than he is about how Nevadans afford to fill their gas tanks or how moms and dads afford to fill their kids’ lunchboxes,” said Berkley.   

“The fact is that four years of John McCain will equal one million years of nuclear waste in Nevada and that makes him a threat to the families and businesses of the Silver State,” Berkley said.  “His plan is Yucca-nomics.  Dump $100 billion dollars of radioactive pork into Yucca Mountain, make a pile of money for the nuclear industry and its high priced lobbyists, then look to Nevada to clean up the mess.  That is why the nuclear lobby is doing everything it can to make sure that when the Bush Administration ends, John McCain will be there to give them four more years to turn Nevada into America’s first toxic nuclear waste dump.”