One of today's New York Times editorials points out (here) correctly that the administration's budget for Yucca Mountain, cut almost to the bone, doesn't give anyone the ability to learn about the science of storing nuclear waste. What we need is a real, non-partisan, blue-ribbon panel of scientists to determine what the U.S. should do about storing the waste--not a group of politicians, but people for whom scientific inquiry is a way of life. Bravo to the NYT for recognizing that it's time for scientific inquiry, not for speechifying. It's also important to note that cutting Yucca's budget doesn't move the policy issues forward. Cutting the budget means that the inquiry has to be done on the cheap, which in turn means that we run the risk of not getting the right information about the best approach for storing the waste.
Reasonable minds can differ about the advisability of storing waste, but reasonable minds should be open to scientific study. Let's give scientific inquiry a chance.
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