Democrat pans GOP ($200,000) plan to visit Yucca nuclear dump

[jpak]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/08/us-congress-yucca-visit-idUSTRE7377V920110408

A top U.S. Democratic lawmaker on Friday slammed a Republican plan to visit the shuttered Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump site, calling the trip a "needless" expense.

Representative Henry Waxman, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce committee, urged lawmakers to cancel the trip to the controversial site after the Energy Department said it would cost at least $200,000.

"At a time when the government is facing a shutdown over funding, it seems completely inappropriate to incur these needless expenses," Waxman said in a letter to John Shimkus, the head of an Energy and Commerce subcommittee.

Waxman's letter was the latest round in a political fight over Nevada's Yucca Mountain dump site, which was supposed to permanently house the nation's nuclear waste.

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