<P> The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, as designated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act amendments of 1987, is to be a deep geological repository storage facility within Yucca Mountain for spent nuclear fuel and other high level radioactive waste in the United States . The site is located on federal land adjacent to the Nevada Test Site in Nye County, Nevada, about 80 mi (130 km) northwest of the Las Vegas Valley . </P> <P> The project was approved in 2002 by the United States Congress, but federal funding for the site ended in 2011 under the Obama Administration via amendment to the Department of Defense and Full - Year Continuing Appropriations Act, passed on April 14, 2011 . The project has had many difficulties and was highly contested by the non-local public, the Western Shoshone peoples, and many politicians . The Government Accountability Office stated that the closure was for political, not technical or safety reasons . </P>

Where is radioactive waste stored in the us