Advising Congress to Cede Control The two chairmen of a study group established after the Obama administration killed a plan for a nuclear waste repository in Nevada appeared before a House subcommittee on Wednesday to explain a proposed solution to the enduring waste dilemma. They found their idea tough to sell. Last week the so-called Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future released a report calling for a new approach to finding a site, based on local consent rather than Congressional dictate. The two chairmen appeared before the Energy and Commerce committee's subcommittee on environment and the economy, whose members were quite deferential over all. One commission co-chairman, Lee H. Hamilton, is a former congressman from Indiana; the other is Brent Scowcroft, a former national security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. But the committee chairman, John Shimkus of Illinois, did not mince words in complaining about the Obama administration, denouncing its "interference" with an evaluation of the merits of the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert. Campaigning in 2008, President Obama promised to halt the project if elected, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, of Nevada, worked hard to cut off funds for it. "This president and this majority leader have failed to comply with the law, and that's why, unfortunately, they've asked you to spend a lot of time, effort and energy, covering their rear ends,"" Mr. Shimkus said. Congress directed the Energy Department in 1987 to begin looking into storing the nation's spent fuel at Yucca. Mr. Hamilton said there was plenty of blame to go around but that the law as it now exists was simply not workable. "We know what we have to do, we know we have to do it, and we even know how to do it,"" he said of the nuclear waste disposal problem. Both in this country and abroad, the engineers have shown that a burial site can be found, he said. "The knowledge and experience are in hand, and necessary funds have been and are being collected,"" Mr.Hamilton added. The core difficulty, he said, was "finding a way to site these inherently controversial facilities, and conduct the waste management program in a manner that allows all stakeholders, but most especially host communities, states and tribes, to conclude that their interests have been adequately protected and their well-being enhanced, not merely sacrificed and overridden for the interests of the country as a whole."" A few members of the committee agreed. Joe Barton, Republican of Texas and a former chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, recounted how senators from Louisiana and Mississippi, both of which were potential candidates for a repository, organized a coalition to push for putting the waste in Nevada. Then, "the Nevada delegation pledged eternal opposition, and they meant it, and that's kind of why we're here today,"" Mr. Barton said, adding, "It's a shame to say we're still where we were basically then, which is that we don't have a solution. Representative Gene Green of Texas, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said that "certain political realities" made it unlikely that Yucca would go forward now. "Consent is always tough,"" he said. "I assume that's why in the 80"s, Congress just made the decision."" Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, the Energy Department was instructed to evaluate several candidate sites. In 1987 Congress simply chose one of them, Yucca, about 100 miles from Las Vegas, and told the Department of Energy to report back on whether it was suitable. Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Scowcroft said that they did not think Congress could reform the process for finding a burial place this year; it might even take three or four years to get that done, they said. In the meantime, the Energy Department will pay estimated damages each year running into the billions of dollars for having failed to accept nuclear wastes from the utilities that generate them. An earlier version of this post misrepresented the state that Representative John Shimkus represents. It is Illinois, not Michigan.