WASHINGTON, May 1 – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued the following statement on President Trump’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage proposal:

“The proposal by President Trump and Republicans in Congress to send our nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain would be a geological, environmental, and social disaster. The site is located less than 100 miles from Las Vegas and sits atop an aquifer in a seismically active area. Nevada’s entire congressional delegation, governor, the Western Shoshone Native American tribes and two-thirds of Nevadans oppose a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. It is completely unacceptable to violate tribal treaty rights and the will of ordinary Nevadans by constructing a permanent spent-fuel repository at Yucca Mountain. We must abandon the idea that Yucca Mountain can solve our nuclear waste problems, stop building new nuclear power plants, and find a real solution to our existing nuclear waste problem.”