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Trump Tweets Reversal Of Push For Nevada Nuclear Waste Dump

(AP Photo/John Locher, File)

President Donald Trump appears to have reversed his position on a proposal to create a national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada after his administration tried for several years to revive the mothballed project.

“Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain and my Administration will RESPECT you!” Trump tweeted Thursday.

Adam Laxalt, Trump’s Republican re-election campaign chief in Nevada, says he believes the president was expressing support for opponents of the project, which was first proposed in the 1980s to entomb 77,000 tons of the nation’s most highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel in tunnels under an ancient volcanic ridge northwest of Las Vegas. Yucca Mountain was among topics Laxalt says he discussed with the president last weekend at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Laxalt on Thursday tweeted thanks to Trump, saying, “We are so fortunate that you listened to us.”

Nevada is a political swing state that Trump lost in 2016. His re-election campaign is targeting Nevada in 2020 as a battleground state it hopes to capture.

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