[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 75 (Monday, May 8, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6232-S6233]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        NEI ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN

  Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I would like to bring to the attention of 
my colleagues an advertisement currently getting wide circulation by 
the nuclear power industry.
  This advertisement touts the virtues of legislation introduced for 
the nuclear power industry to address the industry's nuclear waste 
problem.
  As many of my colleagues are aware, the industry's solution to its 
waste problem has, for a number of years, been very simple: ship the 
waste to Nevada.
  Since 1982, Nevada has been the target of the nuclear powder 
industry's efforts to move its toxic high-level waste away from reactor 
sites.
  Under current law, Yucca Mountain, 90 miles north of Las Vegas, is 
being studied, supposedly to determine its suitability as a site for a 
permanent geologic repository.
  The repository program has had immense problems.
  With $4.5 billion spent to date on the program, Yucca Mountain is no 
closer to accepting the nuclear power industry's waste than it was 13 
years ago, when Congress passed the first Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
  I am not alone in my opinion that a repository will never be built at 
Yucca Mountain.
  The nuclear power industry is also frustrated.
  In a curious juxtaposition from the Nevada perspective, the industry 
thinks the DOE is being too careful, paying too much attention to 
environmental concerns, and simply not moving fast enough.
  While the nuclear power industry still maintains that Nevada is 
perfectly suitable to host their repository, it has come to the 
conclusion that Yucca Mountain will never solve its high-level waste 
problem.
  The nuclear power industry has a new solution, and of course, Nevada 
is once again the victim.
  The nuclear power industry's new strategy is to designate Nevada as 
the site for its interim storage, beginning in 1998.
  While the ``interim'' designation is supposed to imply a temporary 
facility, the nuclear power industry defines ``interim'' as 100 years, 
subject to renewal.
  The motive is patently transparent: ship high level nuclear waste to 
Nevada as soon as possible, without any regard for the health and 
safety of Nevadans, and then forget about it.
  The type of public relations campaign being mounted here is nothing 
new.
  While we in Nevada have long experience with such campaigns by the 
nuclear power industry and its hired flacks, I have to admit that this 
latest advertisement is a masterpiece of deception and misinformation.
  The headline alone reveals the deceptiveness of the advertisement.
  ``There are 109 good reasons to store nuclear waste in 1 place'' 
proclaims the nuclear industry's advertisement.
  The headline appeals to the logic of the reader--of course, the 
reader thinks, 1 site is better than 109.
  The problem is, of course, that the advertisement does not tell the 
true story. [[Page S6233]] 
  Unless the nuclear power industry has some well kept secret plan to 
shut down and decommission every reactor at each of these 109 reactor 
sites, by my count creation of a new, central site for waste storage 
makes 110 sites, not 1.
  How the nuclear power industry gets down to one site, when its 
reactors are still running, and waste is still stored in pools on site, 
is beyond me.
  The advertisement also ignores one of the key problems with a central 
high-level waste facility--the transportation of the toxic waste from 
the 109 reactor sites to the central facility.
  The nuclear power industry, in its obsession to dispose of its waste 
as quickly as possible, is proposing to create thousands of rolling 
interim storage facilities, on trucks, and rail cars, in 43 States 
across the Nation.
  The nuclear power industry's map shows the location of the 109 
reactor sites, but not the proposed location for the central storage 
facility.
  There is a good reason for this oversight--the industry's target for 
a central storage facility is not central at all.
  Not even close.
  Looking at the map, it could not be clearer--only 15 of the 109 sites 
identified are west of the Missouri River.
  This second chart shows the map that the nuclear power industry, if 
it was being honest, should have run in their advertisement.
  This map shows the location of the current reactor sites, the 
proposed location for their central storage facility, and the likely 
routes through 43 States for the thousands of shipments necessary to 
move the high-level waste from around the Nation to Nevada.
  It is obvious to even the casual observer that the nuclear power 
industry's interim storage proposal could result in an unprecedented 
level of shipments of extremely toxic, highly dangerous radioactive 
materials.
  Every Member of the Senate should take a careful look at this map.
  Nothing could make clearer the true scope of what the nuclear power 
industry is proposing.
  Over the years, as I have fought the industry and the DOE in their 
efforts to open a repository in Nevada, I have often found my 
colleagues, both here in the Senate and among the Nation's Governors in 
my previous position, sympathetic to Nevada's cause.
  Many in the Senate sympathize with the outrageous abrogation of 
State's rights.
  Others understand the potential environmental risks associated with 
opening a high-level nuclear waste dump 90 miles from the fastest 
growing metropolitan area in the United States--a metropolitan area 
with nearly 1 million residents.
  Still others have understood the potentially grave economic damages 
that could result from the transport and storage of high-level nuclear 
waste so close to the premier tourist destination in the United States.
  Unfortunately, however, these expressions of sympathy have not often 
translated into action.
  For too long, the commercial nuclear waste problem has been 
identified as a solely Nevada issue.
  The general attitude has been we feel badly for Nevada--but if it is 
not Nevada, who would be the nuclear power industry's next target?
  This map should make clear that the nuclear power industry's refusal 
to accept responsibility for the storage of its own waste will affect 
every citizen of every State along the routes the industry will use to 
move the waste.
  Even those from the few States that are not targets of the nuclear 
power industry should be concerned. I do not know how many of anyone's 
constituents are anxious to share the road with a truck moving high-
level nuclear waste.
  Once the word is out to these affected communities, no one will be 
able to continue to dismiss the issue as simply a Nevada problem.
  In the absence of a permanent solution to the nuclear waste problem, 
there is simply no reason to move nuclear waste away from the reactor 
sites.
  The only crisis facing the nuclear power industry is a public 
relations crisis, not a scientific one.
  The NRC has licensed technology to store waste in dry casks, on site, 
for the next several decades.
  Some utilities, of necessity, have taken advantage of this 
technology.
  Most refuse to do so.
  Why are utilities so adverse to accepting the responsibility for 
their own waste? The answer could not be simpler.
  Recognizing the political and public relations nightmare of seeking 
permission to increase storage for high-level waste on site, utilities 
are seeking an outside solution.
  Nevada, a State with no reactors and about as far as you can get from 
a geographically central location, has been chosen as the target.
  Let me return for a moment to the advertisement.
  I have not even touched on the misinformation provided by the text.
  The ad generally relies on the tried and true tactic of the nuclear 
power industry to create the impression of impending doom if its 
demands for relief are not met immediately.
  Congress, then, is pressured to act quickly, irrespective of the 
wishes, or the health and safety, of Nevadans, or anyone else.
  This was true in 1980, when the industry claimed that reactors across 
the Nation would soon shut down if they could not get what was then 
called away-from-reactor storage by 1983.
  No away-from-reactor storage was ever built, and no reactor has ever 
shut down from lack of storage.
  There simply was no crisis in 1980--and there is no crisis now.
  It is all an expensive, dangerous ruse.
  I urge my colleagues to think carefully before falling for this, and 
other, deceptive misinformation campaigns by the nuclear power industry 
and its advocates.
  Mr. BINGAMAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Shelby). The Senator from New Mexico.
  The Chair informs the Senator from New Mexico that at 12:10 morning 
business is set to expire unless it is extended.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that morning 
business be extended for up to 15 minutes, until I conclude my 
statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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