Americans Spent Three Decades Paying For Federal Project That Doesn't Exist

For 31 years Americans have been paying a fee for a nuclear waste site that doesn't exist, CNBC reported.

The fee on electric bills was supposed to fund a nuclear waste disposal site in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The plan had been for the site to open in 1998, but it never did and the project has since been killed amidst political opposition.

But, the fee has continued to be collected and the fund for the nuclear waste site now is more than $30 billion. The fee costs people about $2 a year and it was established in 1983.

The Energy Department, after decades, suspended the fee on Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"It is irresponsible on the government's part to not move forward on a program that has already been paid for," Marvin Fertel, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, told the newspaper.

The fee generated about $43 billion in revenue and about $12 billion was spent on the Yucca Mountain project before it was killed, the newspaper reported.

And there still are no plans for how to deal with the long-term of nuclear waste. For more on this story visit the Los Angeles Times.