'We will not be a nuclear waste dump': Vulnerable GOP senator slams Trump's Nevada nuke waste plan

Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) got a nasty surprise this week when he discovered that President Donald Trump's proposed budget would revive the Yucca Mountain storage facility for nuclear power plant waste in his home state.

Heller, by far the most vulnerable Republican in the senate in the 2018 midterm elections, railed against Trump's proposal in a statement released Thursday, as he insisted that his state would "not be the nation's nuclear waste dump."

"As has been stated in the past, Yucca is dead and this reckless proposal will not revive it," he said. "Washington needs to understand what Nevada has been saying for years: we will not be the nation’s nuclear waste dump. This project was ill-conceived from the beginning and has already flushed billions of taxpayer dollars down the drain."

Heller also vowed to fight any effort to revive the Yucca Mountain project tooth and nail.

The Las Vegas Review Journal notes that, while Trump would increase funding to revive the Yucca Mountain facility, his budget would also slash the Office of Science's $5 billion budget by a whopping $900 million, which would dramatically cut the amount of research that it now funds at more than 300 universities and at 10 national labs.