Yucca Mountain

Spent fuel rods from the shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant were supposed to be sent to a long-planned federal repository in Yucca Mountain, located in Nevada about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Yucca Mountain is a third rail in Nevada politics — akin to the limits on California property tax increases created by Proposition 13.

All of which makes comments by Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sam Brown about Yucca Mountain so remarkable.

Yucca Mountain was approved by Congress more than two decades ago, but Nevada politicians of both parties have blocked funding appropriations, so only preliminary work has been completed on the repository.

Brown’s campaign did not respond when asked whether his remarks represented his current views about Yucca Mountain, but provided a statement from the Army combat veteran.