[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 104 (Tuesday, July 16, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7850-S7856]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY ACT OF 1996--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the motion to proceed.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, after discussion with the Senators who are 
involved in this nuclear waste issue, I believe we have reached a 
consent agreement as to how we can proceed for the remainder of today 
and into tomorrow.
  Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, 
that Senators Reid and Bryan each be granted 3 hours for debate; that 
there be 2 hours for debate under the control of Senator Murkowski and 
1 hour under the control of Senator Johnston; and that the vote occur 
on the motion to proceed to S. 1936 at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, July 17.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, and I shall not object, I 
want to make sure I understand the unanimous consent agreement. 
Senators Reid and Bryan, between them, would have 6 hours; is that 
right?
  Mr. LOTT. Each would be granted 3 hours. So, yes. Then there would be 
2 hours, as I said, under the control of Senator Murkowski; 1 hour 
under the control of Senator Johnston. I think it is a fair agreement 
of time for all involved.
  In the meantime, we can see if we can work out an agreement on how to 
deal with the gambling commission. We also will begin working on how to 
proceed at some point, hopefully early tomorrow afternoon, to the DOD 
appropriations bill.
  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. LOTT. Yes, for a question.
  Mr. DORGAN. Will there be additional record votes today?
  Mr. LOTT. I was going to make that announcement once we got the 
agreement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, in view of the agreement that has been 
reached, so that Senators can proceed with the debate, I announce that 
there will be no further recorded votes during today, Tuesday. The 
first vote then will occur tomorrow at 1 o'clock.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I state to the majority and minority leaders 
my appreciation for allowing this orderly process. I think everyone 
recognizes that the end result is the same. We could have done a lot of 
parliamentary things and exhausted the Senate, but I think what the two 
leaders have come up with is fair. In effect, the point was made 
earlier today when we got 34 votes that we felt were critical on this 
issue.
  Mr. President, this issue is important. It is important for a number 
of reasons, not the least of which is the issue of transportation of 
nuclear waste.
  We have heard a lot about transportation, as well we should. The fact 
of the matter is that those States that have nuclear waste, if they 
think by some stretch of the imagination by this bill passing it is 
going to get nuclear waste out of the States, it is not going to do it. 
The nuclear reactors have nuclear waste in them now, and they will 
continue to have nuclear waste in them as long as they are producing 
energy, and long thereafter.
  The fact is that the transportation of nuclear waste is a difficult 
issue. In 1982, when the Nuclear Waste Policy Act passed, there was 
discussion at that time that there was no way to transport the nuclear 
waste. There was no way to transport it. In the 14 years since the 
Nuclear Waste Policy Act passed, scientists have been working, trying 
to develop a means of transporting nuclear waste. What they have come 
up with is something called a dry cask storage container. I really do 
not know how it works. It is scientifically above my pay grade. But it 
works to this extent: It is certainly a lot better than what we had in 
1982, and they are working on it all the time to make it better. The 
reason the environmental community and this administration, among other 
reasons, thinks this legislation is so bad is that there is no way to 
safely transport nuclear waste today.
  Right now, these dry cask storage containers are set up so that if 
there is an accident that occurs and the vehicle carrying the canister 
is going 30 miles an hour or less, then it will be safe. But if the 
vehicle is going faster than 30 miles an hour, the canister will be 
breached, and the product within this canister will spew forth.
  The canister is also set up to withstand heat, but the only thing 
they have been able to do, to this point, is make sure that if a fire 
is less than 1,400 degrees and burns for only a half hour, the canister 
will be safe. But if the canister burns for more than a half hour at 
temperatures--it is actually 1,380 degrees--then the canister, again, 
will be breached.
  The reason that is so important, when we talk about transportation, 
is the fact that we all know that trains and trucks, which will be the 
vehicles carrying these canisters, use diesel fuel. Diesel fuel burns 
as high as 3,200 degrees. The average temperature of a diesel fire is 
1,800 degrees. So that is more than 325 degrees higher than these 
canisters are set up to protect.

  So that is why people are saying, we are glad we have made the 
progress with these canisters, because you can put spent fuel rods in a 
canister, put it in this room, drive a truck into it going 30 miles per 
hour, setting a fire, and you are in pretty good shape. But you try to 
transport these nuclear spent fuel rods in these canisters, it will not 
work.
  We know that we have already had seven nuclear waste accidents. We 
know that there is one accident for about every 300 trips. If you 
multiply this, Mr. President, this is going to be traveling all over 
the United States--the rail is in blue, the highway is in red. We are 
going to have a lot of accidents. Very rarely do you see a truck with a 
load going less than 30 miles an hour. Very rarely do you see a fire in 
a train--truck fires you can put out pretty quickly--but train fires we 
know last year we had one that burned for 4 days. So people are 
extremely concerned.
  Mr. President, we have here a chart that is quite illustrative. This 
is, of course, a train accident. We know that there is an average of 
about 60 train accidents a year. Last year was an especially bad 
accident time. There were accidents all over the United States. We had 
one that we were very familiar with in Nevada because on the heavily 
traveled road between Los Angeles and Las Vegas there was a train track 
located more than a mile from the freeway. A train caught fire, and the 
freeway was closed, off and on, for 3 days, totally closed, as a result 
of this accident.
  So accidents do happen. We have 43 States at risk where there are 
going to be huge amounts of nuclear products carried through the 
States. Alabama, 6,000 truckloads, 783 trainloads. Colorado, 1,347 
truckloads, 180 trainloads. Remember, Mr. President, when we talk about 
trainloads, we have some trains that are almost 2 miles in length--2 
miles worth of train. So when we talk about a State like Maine that is 
going to have 100 trainloads, that is a lot of stuff that is going to 
be carried.
  Our Nation's nuclear powerplants, Mr. President, are operating. We 
have not had any new nuclear powerplants in a long time. We will 
probably never in our lifetime have another one. So what are we talking 
about? We are talking about 109 nuclear powerplant reactors. These 
reactors operate in about 34 different States. The nuclear waste that 
is produced from these powerplants presently is placed in one of two 
places. First of all, they go into cooling ponds. Then after they take 
the product out of the cooling ponds, in that they have developed dry 
cask storage containers, then they put them in

[[Page S7851]]

the dry cask storage containers. There is a nuclear powerplant in 
Maryland where they have a dry cask storage facility at the nuclear 
plant. It is very inexpensive to maintain. It works extremely well. As 
a result of that, scientists have said this is not a bad way to go.
  The reason that dry cask storage containers onsite is so attractive 
is that, as I indicated, Mr. President--I misspoke. I am sorry. I did 
not have my notes in front of me. Train accidents--I said 60 train 
accidents a year. I was way low on that. There are 2,500 train 
accidents a year. Rail crossings alone, we have 6,000. An accident is 
deemed to be something where the damage is in excess of $6,300. I do 
not know where they came up with that figure, but that is how they list 
a train accident. There can be a train accident where the damage is 
only $5,000. That is not listed. Hazardous material accidents, there 
are about 30 each year.
  The reason that a number of persons are concerned about S. 1936--I 
would indicate, Mr. President, that the 34 votes, I believe, is a low-
water mark. We have a number of Senators who always vote on motions to 
proceed. We have a number of Senators who stated that no matter what 
happens in the substantive debate on this issue, they will vote to 
sustain the President's veto. So we are doing fine there.
  I want to go over a few things that I think are important. S. 1936 
really tears apart the existing law as it relates to the environment of 
this country. S. 1936 sets aside clean water, clean air, Superfund, all 
the environmental laws that we have developed during the past 25 years. 
I believe, Mr. President, that it is corporate welfare at its worst. It 
will needlessly expose people across America to the risk of a nuclear 
accident, as we have indicated on this chart and on the previous chart. 
It is providing an inadequate framework.
  Let me also say this, Mr. President. I do not like the permanent 
repository. I wish it were not being characterized in Nevada. But the 
fact of the matter is, it is. And even though initially the State of 
Nevada filed lawsuits and did everything we could to oppose it--we put 
up a fair fight, and the powers to be have prevailed in that instance--
the siting of the permanent repository in Nevada is going forward.
  They expect to determine by 1998 or early in 1999, at the very 
latest, as to whether that site is viable, whether that site will be 
something that scientists say you can place nuclear waste at Yucca 
Mountain. But that is a fair fight. It is a fight where there were 
rules, and people got in the ring and they sparred, and the round ended 
and they went back and rested and came back and fought some more. It is 
a fair fight being determined by science.
  That is why the end run of the nuclear power industry has been so 
unfair here. S. 1936 would effectively end the work on the permanent 
repository and compromise the health, safety, and environmental 
protections the citizens deserve and they currently enjoy. It would 
create an unneeded and costly interim storage facility and expose the 
Government and the citizens to enormous financial risk.
  I stated previously that the President stated he will veto this bill 
in its present form since it will designate interim storage at a 
specific site before the viability of a permanent repository has been 
determined. The President said that in a letter that he wrote to 
Senator Daschle today.
  The technical review boards commissioned by our Government--and I say 
that plural--technical review boards have consistently found there is 
no immediate or anticipated risk in continuing at-reactor dry cask 
storage for several decades.
  In 1987, the Congress set up the Nuclear Waste Technical Review 
Board, a group of scientists with no political aims, goals, or 
aspirations. They are pure scientists that were asked to make a 
determination as to whether or not there should be offsite storage; 
that is, should they take it from the site and move it to an interim 
storage facility? These individuals said, definitely no.
  S. 1936, in a backhand--I should not say backhand--just a slap in 
their face, in effect. It takes their power away from them, which is 
what has happened in this interim storage battle. In effect, what they 
have done is they have said, ``If you don't do what we say you should 
do, then we're going to get rid of you legislatively.'' And that is 
wrong.
  Mr. President, S. 1936 directly contradicts the nonpartisan Nuclear 
Waste Technical Review Board. In March of this year, the Nuclear Waste 
Technical Review Board, a nonpartisan oversight body established by 
Congress under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, issued a report entitled 
``Disposal and Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel, Finding the Right 
Balance.'' In the report the question was asked whether a centralized 
interim storage facility is necessary.
  They said, unequivocally, a centralized interim storage facility is 
not necessary. The board found that there was no compelling technical 
reason for moving nuclear waste to a centralized storage facility at 
this time. This is not the Senator from Idaho or the Senator from 
Nevada making a decision as to what should be done with spent nuclear 
fuel. This is a nonpartisan Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board that 
said emphatically there is no compelling technical reason for moving 
nuclear fuel, nuclear waste to a centralized storage facility. ``The 
methods now used to store spent fuel at reactor sites are safe,'' a 
direct quote from the report, ``and will remain safe for decades to 
come.'' That is from the technical review board.
  Furthermore, the board concluded that it makes technical, managerial, 
and fiscal sense to wait until a decision is reached on Yucca Mountain 
before beginning development of a centralized storage facility. It is 
clear that we are not prepared to open a centralized storage facility. 
The board noted that establishing a transportation system requires the 
acquisition of trucks, railcars and casks, the establishment of 
transportation routes, and the development of emergency preparedness 
plans at the affected State and local levels. The Federal Government 
could not begin accepting spent fuel before well after the turn of the 
century, and maybe not even then in significant amounts.
  My colleague, Senator Bryan, this morning talked about the report, 
``Disposal and Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel--Finding the Right 
Balance.'' That is the report by the Nuclear Waste Technical Review 
Board. They gave this report March 20, 1996. What was this report? It 
was not a report to a Senator from New Hampshire or a Senator from 
Vermont, a Senator from Massachusetts, Kansas, California, Nevada, 
Idaho or anywhere else. It is a report to Congress and the Secretary of 
Energy where these scientists went through great pains to come up with 
an appropriate decision.
  Now, the people that made this decision, saying there is no reason to 
move spent nuclear fuel, are people with some pretty strong 
credentials: Doctor John E. Cantlon, chairman, Michigan State 
University; Dr. Clarence R. Allen, California Institute of Technology; 
Dr. John W. Arendt, he is a private consultant; Dr. Garry D. Brewer, 
University of Michigan; Dr. Jared L. Cohon, Yale University; Dr. Edward 
Cording, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Dr. Donald 
Langmuir, Colorado School of Mines, emeritus, one of the premiere 
scientists of America, from the Colorado School of Mines. He has 
associated with the Mackay School of Mines over the years and is 
somebody who people really understand in the technical disposal of 
waste, mine waste, other kinds of waste; Dr. John L. McKetta, 
University of Texas at Austin, emeritus, another person who is a 
scientist who is retired and is noted for his scientific expertise; Dr. 
Jeffrey J. Wong, California Environment Protection Agency; Dr. Patrick 
D. Domenico, Texas A&M University; Dr. Ellis D. Verink, Jr., University 
of Florida; Dr. Dennis L. Price, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and 
State University. These are the men that came up with this report. 
These are people who did not just drop by and say, ``I have 
credentials, will you let me be on the board?'' These are people that 
were chosen because of their expertise. They would be nonpartisan. We 
do not know if they are Democrats, Republicans or Independents. Their 
report certainly indicates that they did what they felt was the right 
thing from a scientific standpoint.
  Summary of board recommendations: ``Developing a permanent disposal 
capability should remain the primary

[[Page S7852]]

goal.'' That is what the President said in his letter. The board 
recommends the next several years that we not be concerned about 
interim storage. We cannot lose sight of what the goal is because 
siting of a centralized storage facility may be difficult. The board 
recommends that they continue with their characterization at Yucca 
Mountain.
  That is, in effect, what scientists have told us. That there is no 
reason for this legislation, that we do not have to worry about the 
safety, we do not have to worry about what is going on, onsite. They 
have said that everything is going to be better if we leave it where it 
is than if we try to move it.

  Mr. President, we have had a significant number of groups take a look 
at this. As the Presiding Officer knows, I have not always agreed with 
environmental groups. The Senator that is presiding and I have been in 
some knockdown drag-out battles where we have opposed the environmental 
communities because we felt they have been wrong and the issues are 
important to the western part of the United States.
  On this issue, there has not been a single environmental group that 
supports S. 1936--not one. They have all opposed this. It is 
unnecessary and it is absolutely wrong. We can look at, for example, 
Public Citizen. They say they oppose it for a lot of reasons, but this 
group is representative of the entire environmental community. S. 1936 
opens the door to the unprecedented transportation of high-level waste 
and fails to address concerns about shipment safety. They are not 
saying that someday there might not have to be shipments of high-level 
nuclear waste. All they are saying is that before we do that, address 
the concerns about shipment and safety.
  Mr. President, here is a map of the United States. Most of the 
nuclear waste is produced in the eastern and southern part of the 
United States. That is why these groups and others are saying, ``Slow 
down, leave it where it is.'' There are certain places in the country, 
like St. Louis, Denver, Salt Lake, Atlanta, and all these places become 
crossroads of hauling nuclear waste.
  Why do we continually talk about nuclear waste? Why do we talk about 
how bad nuclear waste is? We talk about how bad it is because it is the 
worst product that man has devised. Mr. President, when we are dealing 
with the issue of spent nuclear fuel, we are dealing unquestionably 
with an issue of great risks and significant danger. It is not 
something that we should deal with lightly. We have taken for granted 
here that everyone understands why we are concerned about nuclear 
waste--not why we in Nevada are concerned about nuclear waste, but why 
the country is concerned about the transportation of nuclear waste. Why 
Public Citizen and all other environmental groups are saying that this 
bill fails to address the concerns about shipment safety. We tend, I 
guess, to take for granted that everyone understands how poisonous, how 
dangerous, this substance is.
  Without being repetitive, and I have not talked about this since I 
have been able to speak on this bill, let me talk a little bit about 
the dangers of this product, spent nuclear fuel. It is not a topic we 
should be rushing through here. The topic deserves our attention. In 
fact, Mr. President, the Washington Post indicates today that this 
legislation is extremely important. I will read from part of this 
article.

       Anxious to rid itself of the accumulating waste and 
     liability that it represents, and fearful that the Federal 
     studies could bog down, the nuclear lobby is pushing a bill 
     to designate an ``interim'' storage site in Nevada that would 
     not have to meet all of the standards of a permanent 
     facility. . . A cloture vote will be held today to cut off 
     their filibuster; they expect to lose. But the president has 
     also threatened a veto, and the Nevadans think they could 
     sustain.
       We hope they do, if necessary. The interim bill is the 
     wrong way to solve what is not yet a fully urgent problem. It 
     may well be that there is no alternative to permanent 
     storage--some people think a timely way may yet be found to 
     detoxify the waste instead. It also may be that Yucca 
     Mountain is the best available site. But this is too 
     important a decision to be jammed through the latter part of 
     a Congress on the strength of the industry's fabricated claim 
     that.

  This is an emergency. It really is, Mr. President. This is a 
fabrication. There is no emergency.
  We are concerned. In our environmental laws, there is a right to 
know. If there is a plant in your town belching out smoke, you have a 
right to know what it is belching out. The people of this country have 
a right to understand how deadly nuclear waste is. A typical spent fuel 
rod assembly, when removed from a reactor, has hundreds of pounds of 
uranium, tens of pounds of other nuclear fissionable products, and 
pounds of plutonium. It is deadly. Being exposed for just seconds to an 
unshielded fuel rod is lethal. You do not have to be exposed to it for 
hours or days. The casks of spent fuel that will be shipped under the 
provisions of S. 1936 will contain most, if not all, of these 
assemblies. All of these fission products are extremely dangerous.
  The radioactive iodine causes thyroid cancer. The radioactive 
strontium causes bone cancer. Cesium, plutonium, uranium all lead to 
their own forms of cancer. We know how dangerous uranium is. We had a 
man who came from the State of Colorado in the sixties, when uranium 
was such a big deal. He came to Nevada, and he was so wealthy because 
he had uranium mines in Colorado. He came to Nevada because he wanted 
to mine uranium in Nevada. He spread money around like it was going out 
of style. We did not know. My dad was a miner. Nobody knew, and he did 
not know of the dangers of working in a mine where you mined uranium, 
dirt, and rock. We learned later that it killed people, made them very 
sick. It did not kill them quickly, but it made them sick and killed 
them. We know that uranium leads to all forms of cancer.
  Those who doubt these risks only need to look at Chernobyl. That is 
what we are talking about. We are talking here about transporting 
nuclear waste. We have heard it referred to as a ``mobile Chernobyl.'' 
Childhood cancers at Chernobyl are at an extremely elevated level, and 
other cancers can be expected soon.
  Again, without talking at great length about the Presiding Officer--
he is easy to talk about--the Presiding Officer had the opportunity to 
go to the Olympics. We have the Olympics coming up soon, starting this 
Friday. I remember that great little gymnast from Russia that we all 
admired. She weighed less than 100 pounds and had the strength of a 
500-pound person. She could bound through the air. Her name is Olga 
Korbut. She is now sick. She lives in the United States, and she is 
sick as a result of Chernobyl. She lived 100 miles away, and she now 
has an incurable form of cancer from Chernobyl.
  The result of exposure to these same nuclear fission products will 
make you sick. Some will say the spent fuel is not the same as the fuel 
in the Chernobyl reactor, and the amounts of fuel in the shipping 
containers and in the reactor are very different. Generally, that is 
true--not that the stuff in the container is not bad. It is bad. But, 
remember, when you breach one of the canisters--and you can do it in an 
accident going more than 30 miles an hour and in a fire that lasts more 
than 30 minutes and is hotter than 1,475 degrees. There are other 
subtle differences. The aggregate fuel to be shipped is a fuel from 
many reactors, the equivalent of thousands of reactors of fuel. 
Therefore, the risks are extremely significant. These nuclear fission 
products are the same kind of fission products that spread from 
Chernobyl. They are no different.
  Spent fuel is deadly. Even fuel that has been cooled in ponds for 
decades is deadly. People know that. That is one reason they want to 
get the stuff out of their backyards. Mr. President, I said earlier 
today, and I say it now, S. 1936 is not going to get all the spent fuel 
out of the yards. It is going to create more problems in the State 
where you are going to try to transport it, until we can do it safely. 
Yes, S. 1936 will put this deadly waste on the highways earlier than is 
necessary, before we have had time to assure that it could be moved 
safely. We know it is safe where it is. We have not had, in the United 
States--thank goodness--a single accident where someone has gotten hurt 
as a result of spent fuel stored in a cooling pond; not a single 
accident. That is why this group of eminent scientists said everybody 
should cool it, take it easy, we do not need to rush into transporting 
nuclear waste. Leave it where it is. We know it can be kept safely 
where it is for the next 10 years. If it is

[[Page S7853]]

put in the dry cask storage containers, it can be kept up to 100 years. 
This is no time to send this dangerous material down the highways and 
railways. Let us remember that this is not like a garbage barge 
traveling down the Mississippi or another great river system.

  Mr. President, I also want to comment on a vote cast by the junior 
Senator from the State of Indiana. The Senator voted against the motion 
to proceed today. His vote and the vote of the Presiding Officer made 
the difference in our being able to get 34 votes, which was the magic 
number we sought today. I have not spoken to the Senator from Indiana, 
but I am certain the reason he made that courageous vote is because he, 
being from the State of Indiana, knows what it means to accept garbage 
and to be forced to accept it. I have joined arm in arm with the 
Senator from Indiana in years gone by, saying I agreed with him that he 
should not be forced to accept huge truckloads of garbage. Well, he 
voted in a very courageous way, for which I will always be grateful. I 
will tell him that when I have the opportunity. His vote made the 
difference today.
  This product is not like the garbage that the junior Senator from 
Indiana complains of. It is garbage, but it is much more dangerous than 
the garbage that the Senator from Indiana has attempted, and done quite 
well, to keep out of his State. This is not like the garbage barge that 
they could not figure out where to put and nobody would accept the 
garbage. This waste kills people. If there is an accident, just by 
being around it can make you sick. This is not just some stinking, 
repulsive, foul waste. This is deadly waste--deadly in the true sense 
of the word.
  Mr. President, one of the things I wanted to talk about today for a 
little while is States rights. The reason I want to talk about States 
rights is this. We talk a lot about States rights in this body. This 
Congress, I think, has done a great job, Democrats and Republicans, in 
recognizing that there comes a time when you have to back off from 
having the Federal Government do everything. There comes a time in this 
Federal system when we recognize that there is a central whole, Federal 
Government divided among the three branches, and the States. That is 
what we have. In the last several decades, we have kind of forgotten 
about the self-governing parts and focused everything on the central 
whole. If we have done nothing else in this Congress, we have said we 
are going to try to get more power back to the States. We have done it 
with unfunded mandates. We have done it with, hopefully, the welfare 
reform bill that I hope will pass. Things are sounding real good about 
that, returning power back to the States. S. 1936 tramples on States 
rights.
  Here is, for example, what it says. This is right from the bill:
       If the requirements of any law are inconsistent with or 
     duplicative of the requirements of the Atomic Energy Act and 
     this Act, the Secretary shall comply only with the 
     requirements of the Atomic Energy Act and this Act in 
     implementing the integrated management system. Any 
     requirement of a State of political subdivision of a State is 
     preempted if--
       (1) complying with such requirement and a requirement of 
     this Act is impossible; or
       (2) such requirement, as applied or enforced, is an 
     obstacle to accomplishing or carrying out this Act or a 
     regulation under this Act.
  What does ``obstacle'' mean? Does that mean the Secretary of Energy 
does not want to spend another $1,000 traveling to wherever it might 
be? It is simply really stretching things to say that States rights 
will be done away with, abrogated, finished if there is an ``obstacle'' 
to accomplishing this act. That is not how we operate in this country. 
It has not been in the past how we operated.
  Remember the 10th amendment.

       The powers not delegated to the United States by the 
     Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are 
     reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

  I hope, Mr. President, that people can see this proposed legislation 
for what it is. It tramples on States rights. This bill denies due 
process and the States rights to protect their citizens. It denies due 
process by legislating illegal injunctions against intrusive activity.
  The sponsors will say, ``Well, you will get your day in court.'' That 
is like saying you will get your day in court after we have spent 2 
weeks with the jury alone giving them our statement of facts, and then 
go ahead and try to change their minds. The bill says not until a lot 
of the actions have assured that a done deal has been instituted. In 
fact, what they are saying is, ``Sure, you are going to be able to go 
to court, but only after we accomplish what we set out to accomplish in 
the act.''
  It reverses the Nation's progress toward assuring our offspring a 
safe and nurturing environment. It does this by delaying the 
assessments of the consequences until the groundwork has already been 
done. The sponsors will say, ``Well, we have not started construction 
yet.'' But the bill mandates land withdrawal and acquisitions of 
rights-of-way and development of rail and roadway systems prior to the 
development of an environmental impact statement. Damage has already 
been done to communities and their economic opportunities before the 
assessment is executed.
  These abuses of legislative powers, which would relieve the nuclear-
power-generating industry of its serious responsibility to manage and 
fund its business affairs, are outrageous. On that basis alone, we 
should not allow this legislation to proceed forward. It is amazing to 
see such an attack on States rights--from a Congress that professes, 
and I think has shown by action, to be working to enhance States 
rights--is allowed to proceed. Past efforts to craft a nuclear waste 
policy for the Nation have honored States rights.
  That is one of the things that we in Nevada have been proud of, that 
we have had the ability to fight the permanent repository. I think one 
of the things we have done in ``fighting''--for lack of a better word--
the Senator from Alaska and the senior Senator from Louisiana, has been 
to allow us States rights. We have been able to effect most of what we 
have wanted through these efforts legislatively. We have not liked 
everything, but, generally speaking, we have been able to protect the 
rights of the States.
  In 1982 and again in 1987, legislative action assured NEPA 
protections for all States. This is no longer true under this bill.
  In 1982 and again in 1987, legislative action assured that there 
would be no double jeopardy for individual States. Under this proposed 
legislation, this is no longer true. Under this bill, this is no longer 
true.
  In 1982 and again in 1987, States were assured that they would be 
informed of all actions related to the Federal Government's efforts to 
site an interim storage facility in their State. This is no longer true 
under this legislation.
  In 1982 and again in 1987, States were afforded the opportunity to 
disapprove Federal efforts to site waste repository in their States. 
This is no longer true under this legislation.
  In 1982 and again in 1987, there were limits on interim storage in an 
effort to keep the storage truly interim. In effect, they said that you 
cannot have an interim storage facility or a permanent repository in 
the same State. It is no longer true under this bill.
  Under this bill, the first phase of interim storage of up to 15,000 
metric tons will satisfy the industry's storage needs for 20 years or 
more. With the expansive provisions in this legislation to go up to 
60,000 metric tons, this will be an interim facility for well over 100 
years. This is hardly a bill about interim storage. This is a permanent 
storage bill hidden in interim storage language. Why would anyone 
propose interim storage for 100 years if they were truly dealing with 
the interim storage problem?
  This is just what Nevadans have always feared--a back-door attempt to 
site permanent storage under the guise of interim storage.
  Mr. President, we have talked today briefly--and it is part of this 
Record--about the President stating in writing, as he has before, that 
he is going to veto this bill. The first time I ever met with the 
President was when he was then Governor of Arkansas approximately 4 
years ago. One of the discussions that the two Senators from Nevada had 
with the person running for President was, What about nuclear waste? We 
explained it to him and spent 40 minutes with him at National Airport 
the first time I ever met him. My colleague had met him. They had 
served as Governors together. But he focused on this issue. He 
understood this issue. He said we should go forward with the permanent 
repository

[[Page S7854]]

and find a place to locate this. He was not aware of nuclear waste. He 
is from Arkansas, and they have a nuclear power facility in Arkansas. 
But he said it is unfair to short-circuit the system.
  That is, in effect, what he says in the veto message.

       The administration cannot support this bill. The 
     administration believes that it is important to continue 
     working on a permanent geologic repository. The Department of 
     Energy has been making significant progress in recent years, 
     and is on schedule to determine the viability of the site in 
     1998.

  Now, my friend, the senior Senator from Louisiana, knows how we have 
fought the permanent repository. But it has been a fair fight. It has 
been fair to the extent that science has directed and dictated what we 
have done, what has occurred at Yucca Mountain. For those who say this 
permanent repository is going nowhere, try to tell that to the people 
who are working at Yucca Mountain. They have bored a hole in the side 
of a mountain that is bigger than this room and it is 2 miles deep. The 
permanent repository is being characterized as they put this huge auger 
through this mountain. They are continually running core samples to 
find out where the faults are and what the water tables are. There is 
tracking going on to determine about earthquakes, about potential 
volcanic action in those mountains--characterization of Yucca Mountain 
is going forward, and that is what the President is talking about. 
Designating the Nevada test site as an interim waste site as S. 1936 
effectively does will undermine the ongoing Yucca Mountain evaluation 
work by siphoning away resources. Perhaps more important than that, 
this bill will destroy the credibility of the Nation's nuclear waste 
disposal program.
  Some have alleged we need to move spent commercial fuel rods to a 
central interim site now. I repeat, for the third or fourth time today, 
``According to a recent report from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review 
Board, an independent board established by Congress, there is no 
technical or safety reason to move spent fuel to an interim central 
storage facility * * *.'' The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board 
assures us that ``adequate at-reactor storage space is and will remain 
available for many years.'' That is what the President of the United 
States says, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, we need to take a look at what was stated in the 
Washington Post today. I will close this part of the discussion by 
stating what the Washington Post has said today:

       (T)his is too important a decision to be jammed through the 
     latter part of a Congress on the strength of the industry's 
     fabricated claim that it faces an emergency.

  That is a direct quote. It is not the statement of the Senator from 
Nevada, even though I totally agree with it.
  At this time, Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time and 
yield the floor to the Senator from Louisiana.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). The Senator from Louisiana [Mr. 
Johnston] is recognized.
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend, I am going to depart the Chamber and he 
is going to talk until 12:30 or thereabouts?
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Or thereabouts. I thank my friend from Nevada for 
making it possible for me to speak now, which does comport well with my 
schedule.
  Mr. President, one of the most curious things about this whole debate 
to me is how my friends from Nevada can be so opposed to the storage of 
nuclear waste when they have not only countenanced but welcomed and 
sought the explosion of nuclear tests in Nevada. What Nevada has done 
through the years is sought and received hundreds of nuclear tests.
  The technology for those nuclear tests in the past has been: You 
drill a deep hole and you explode this nuclear test which, in turn, 
leaves the full spectrum of nuclear waste we are talking about, nuclear 
waste from civilian nuclear plants. Cesium 137, strontium 90, 
plutonium--all of it is contained in what amounts to big, bulbous holes 
down deep in the ground. Some of those tests were actually detonated in 
the water table. And there are hundreds of them. When the Nevadans 
sought to oppose the limitation on nuclear testing, they made the case 
that the country needs the tests and that they need the jobs. They were 
unsuccessful in maintaining that a couple of years ago, here on the 
floor of the Senate, because of the Senate's concern with 
nonproliferation. But it was not their fault. And they have never yet 
stated there is any problem at all with having hundreds of these round 
domes caused by explosions containing strontium, cesium, plutonium, and 
the full spectrum of nuclear waste.

  How could that be? Mr. President, I suggest they were right in the 
first instance; that the geography of Nevada in this particular area, 
which is the same area where we want to store the civilian nuclear 
waste, is so dry and so rocky and so devoid of people that it is, in 
fact, a safe place to conduct these nuclear tests. And, believe me, if 
it is safe to conduct hundreds of nuclear tests it is much more safe to 
store civilian nuclear waste under Yucca Mountain in containers which 
themselves pose quite a barrier to any contamination, and I believe the 
storage area is at least 200 meters through solid rock above the meager 
water table which you have, which, as I say, has already been, to the 
extent it can be contaminated--already been contaminated by the nuclear 
explosions.
  Mr. President, this bill deals with both interim storage and 
permanent storage, or the repository. Why do we wish to have interim 
storage mentioned, and what does the bill do? The bill says this, and 
this is the new bill. It says you shall proceed to do design and long 
lead-time items for the interim storage facility, but that construction 
on the interim storage facility may not begin until December 31, 1998, 
over 3 years from now. But, in the meantime, those long lead-time items 
like design, like the environmental impact statement, can proceed.
  It further states that the suitability determination must be made by 
December 31, 1998--suitability of the repository. This, in fact, was 
and is the chief objection of the administration to this bill. They 
have said all along you should not locate an interim storage facility 
at a place unless it also was the place at which the permanent 
repository shall be located. They should be colocated. You should have 
an interim and a permanent storage at the same place. And they have 
made the argument all along that, suppose the Yucca Mountain site is 
not suitable for the repository, then you should not put the interim 
storage facility there.
  I proposed an amendment in the Energy Committee that said you may not 
begin construction until that suitability determination is made. 
Unfortunately, my amendment was not agreed to. The bill was reported 
out. But in the ensuing weeks, Senator Murkowski and Senator Craig and 
I came to an agreement where we put the essential parts of the Johnston 
amendment back in the bill, and in effect a substitute bill has been 
filed and is now here for consideration. So the chief complaint of the 
administration all along, the chief complaint in Leon Panetta's letter 
today, has been answered by this legislation. Obviously, Mr. Panetta 
was not aware of this substitute bill, the provisions of which 
incorporate the Johnston amendment, because that criticism of the White 
House has been answered.
  Why do we need to do, however, the long lead-time items now? Because 
it saves 3 years, Mr. President, in the building of the interim storage 
facility. If you wait to determine suitability before you design the 
interim storage facility, and before you do the environmental impact 
statements, you have lost 3 years unnecessarily on the ability to 
receive waste at the interim storage facility.
  What is the problem with that? Why do we care whether you have an 
interim storage facility 3 years earlier? You care because all of these 
reactors around the country, at some 76 sites in 34 States, are using 
up, seriatim, one by one, their space in their so-called swimming 
pools.
  The nuclear waste is taken and put literally in what looks like a 
swimming pool, a deep pool. But, as that gets filled, the nuclear 
facilities must, if they have no place to transport their waste, build 
dry cask storage on site. That dry cask storage is very expensive. We 
received testimony it would cost about $5 billion to build the dry cask 
storage if you do not have interim storage facilities in the meantime.
  Mr. President, an expenditure of $5 billion for dry cask storage on 
site

[[Page S7855]]

would stick the ratepayers of this country with a very heavy load, and 
it is a totally unnecessary expense. For that reason, we must get on 
with this business of designing the interim storage facility and 
proceeding to do the environmental impact statements, which will take 
most of the time during that 3 years.
  We also deal with the permanent facility. We have heard complaints 
from our friends from Nevada that we are short-circuiting the science. 
I can tell you, Mr. President, if the EPA comes up with the same rules 
for the permanent facility that we have for the waste isolation pilot 
plant in New Mexico, then we will not be able, in my judgment, to build 
a permanent facility anywhere, anyplace in the world. Let me tell you 
why and let me tell you why their requirements are really not 
scientific. They are estimates of, I do not know whether you call it 
history or human conduct or whatever.
  One of the most difficult requirements in the WIPP facility is what 
we call human intrusion. They say that after the first 100 years--keep 
in mind that this facility must prove itself to be safe over 10,000 
years or more--they say that after the first 100 years, you may not 
assume that people even know where this is; that all records are lost, 
all the signposts that say ``danger, nuclear waste facility,'' are all 
gone and nobody knows. How they came to this conclusion, how they 
thought that you could go backward in history--sure, we do not know 
where the ancient city of Mycenae is, but does anybody seriously think 
that you would lose the records of where this nuclear waste facility 
is? I mean, that literally is what they have determined in their rules 
for the waste isolation pilot plant.
  They also say that you must assume that they will come out and start 
drilling holes down through the facility. Quoting from section 194.33 
of the Federal Register of Friday, February 9, 1996, they say--I am 
quoting now to give you a little flavor of this:

       In determining the drilling rate or the amount of waste 
     released from such drilling, performance assessments should 
     not assume that drill operators would detect the waste and 
     then cease the current drilling operations or otherwise 
     mitigate the consequences of their actions.

  In other words, they say that you assume the holes--and you have to 
assume when they penetrated the waste package that they did not stop. 
Further quoting, it says:

       Similarly, drill operators should not be assumed to cease 
     further exploration and development of the resources as a 
     result of the drillers detecting the waste.

  What does that mean? That means these drillers get out there, they 
did not know this waste facility was there, but they drill down through 
a waste package and they finally detect it, but you cannot assume that 
they stop drilling. Mr. President, I am not making this up, that is 
from what EPA has said.
  Can you imagine anything more silly than people putting these drill 
rigs on top of Yucca Mountain and drilling right down through it and 
penetrating a waste package and saying, ``Well, I detect nuclear waste 
down there, but I'm not going to stop drilling, I'm going to keep on 
drilling''? Mr. President, that is what it says.
  In the case of the waste isolation pilot plant, it is located in New 
Mexico in a salt formation, in about 2,000 feet of salt. With the WIPP 
facility, it is probably not going to be fatal, because in the case of 
salt, it is very plastic. You can drill a hole through salt and that 
hole closes up in a matter of, I guess, weeks, months. It is a very 
plastic sort of thing under pressure, and it closes up.
  In the case of WIPP, that is not a big problem. If they have this 
same kind of test with respect to Yucca Mountain, which is a tuff or 
volcanic sort of rocky formation, and you have holes drilled down 
through it, how can you ever assume it is going to be safe if you drill 
these holes? You cannot.
  And then you combine that with the fact that they come up with, in 
the case of WIPP, a 15-millirem protection level for radioactivity, and 
I just do not think you can build a repository anywhere in the world.

  In our bill, we set the standard of radioactivity at 100 millirems. 
Why 100 millirems? Because the natural variation in background 
radioactivity varies by more than 100 millirems. The natural background 
radiation in Washington, DC, is about 345 millirems. Let me explain 
that, Mr. President, because we will be debating this question of 
radioactivity and exposure a great deal in this bill.
  A millirem--or a rem--which is one thousandth of a rem--is a measure 
of the amount of damage that radioactivity does to the body. 
Radioactivity comes from several sources--alpha, beta, gamma rays, each 
of which reacts differently on the body. But millirems, or rems, are 
able to convert the kind of radioactivity, whether it is alpha, beta or 
gamma radiation, and convert the pathways of that radiation, whether it 
is a radiation that comes through as an x ray or something you ingest 
by mouth or something you are exposed to from the air. It is able to 
convert all of those pathways and all of the different kinds of 
radiation to one standard measurement of harm to the body. That is what 
they call a rem, or a thousandth of a rem is a millirem. So it does not 
matter whether you are drinking water or whether you are exposed to an 
x ray; it can convert that into one standard convertible measure.
  Each of us--and this would surprise a lot of Americans--are living in 
a soup of radioactivity, about 345 millirems here in Washington, DC. 
That comes from natural radioactivity of the body. There is potassium, 
there is phosphorous in the body, which is radioactive and which 
accounts for about 30 millirems a year. If you dance with your wife, or 
with anybody, you are exposed to radioactivity from their body and, 
indeed, from your own body.
  A very big source of radioactivity is from radon, which is caused by 
the decay of radium in the soil and in the rocks, and it comes out as 
radon, which is a gas.
  There is also radioactivity from carbon 14, which comes from a 
bombardment of the carbon 12 atoms in the atmosphere. And that produces 
about, I think it is about 40 millirems a year.

  Then there is radioactivity from rock and from the granite. Here at 
the Capitol, on the front steps of the Capitol, I think there is 
something like an additional 80 millirems of radioactivity, as I 
recall. Yes. Here it is. On the front portico of the Supreme Court 
there are 75 millirems. In the interior of the Lincoln Memorial there 
are 75. The sidewalk in front of the White House has 90 to 115 
millirems. Beside the reflecting pool there are 115 to 150 millirems. 
Get this, the hearing room in the Dirksen Building is 250 millirems. 
Worst of all, the doorway of the Library of Congress has 380 millirems.
  Or to put it another way, if you fly from Washington to Colorado, you 
increase your millirems by over 100 because the natural background 
radiation in Colorado or Wyoming or New Mexico or Utah or most any of 
those mountain States is over 100 millirems greater than that which you 
receive here in Washington. By the way, the pilot who flies that one 
flight to get there, he receives an additional 5 millirems. So we are 
in a soup of millirems. The body is subjected to literally millions of 
intrusions of radioactivity each day.
  So why did we set the limit at 100 millirems? First of all, because 
there is absolutely no scientific danger in this amount of 
radioactivity. To quote from the Health Physics Society's statement of 
position in January 1996, they stated that ``There is substantial and 
convincing scientific evidence for health risks at high dose. Below 10 
rems''--that is 100 times the 100 millirem measure we are talking 
about--``risks of health effects are either too small to be observed or 
are nonexistent.''
  Let me repeat that. ``Below 10 rems,'' which is 100 times the limit 
we propose in this bill, ``. . . health effects are either too small to 
be observed or are nonexistent.'' That is according to the Health 
Physics Society in January 1996. It is based on a wealth of studies.
  For example, in 1991, a study by the Johns Hopkins University of 
700,000 shipyard workers showed that cancer deaths were significantly 
lower among workers exposed to more than 500 millirems than among 
workers exposed to less than 500 millirems or among the general 
population. The 700,000 workers, if they were exposed to more than 500 
millirems, are more healthy, with less cancer than those exposed to 
less.
  Why is this? Well, the scientific world believes there is a 
phenomenon whereby exposure to low levels of radioactivity excite 
enzymes in the body

[[Page S7856]]

which, in turn, are protective of the body from further radioactivity, 
called hormesis, the phenomenon which they describe. We are not basing 
our limits here on the phenomenon of hormesis; however, it is in fact a 
well-documented scientific theory at this point.
  In any event, the 100-millirem amount which we propose here is well 
within the natural variations. As I say, it is less than the change you 
would get just by moving to Colorado or to Wyoming. Believe me, there 
are no signs at the Denver airport--I was just there--that say, 
``Warning. Danger. You are now getting more than 100 millirems more 
than you would get in Washington, DC.''
  Why is this so important? Because the question is, can you build a 
repository if you make these assumptions of drilling these drill holes 
down that they go down into the water table and then you have these 
minuscule amounts at 15 millirems? Then the assumptions you make make 
it unachievable. There are also other assumptions that would be very 
important; that is, where you assume the drill hole would be drilled. 
Is it through the mountain or is it where people would farm or how far 
away? But we do not deal with that question. But we do deal with that 
amount, which we believe makes this entirely safe and within the normal 
limits to which people are exposed.
  I also point out, Mr. President, that the 100-millirem amount is the 
same amount which has been adopted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
as the amount which you should limit nuclear plants to. The 
International Commission on Radiological Protection in 1990 recommended 
that the annual effective dose from practices be limited to no more 
than 100 millirems per year. The National Council on Radiation 
Protection on Measurements also adopted the 100-millirem limit. As I 
said, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission had 100 millirems. Indeed, 
the EPA in their Radiation Protection Guidance for Exposure of General 
Public in 1994 recommends an effective dose from all manmade sources to 
be no more than 100 millirems a year.

  So, Mr. President, I believe it is entirely proper to set this level 
at that amount, and it is entirely necessary in order to get this 
facility built.
  Mr. President, I remember when we first passed the Nuclear Waste 
Policy Act. At that time the act called for characterizing three 
different sites. Characterizing means determining the suitability of 
three different sites for selection of a final facility. The three 
sites at that time were in the State of Washington, in the State of 
Texas, and Yucca Mountain. The estimate of the cost of that 
characterization at that time was $60 million per site, which seemed to 
me to be an extraordinarily expensive amount just to determine the 
suitability of the site.
  In the ensuing years, Yucca Mountain was selected legislatively as 
the site to use, but the cost of characterization kept going up. By 
1984, I believe it was, the cost had risen to $1.2 billion to 
characterize that site. The cost has now gone, according to the latest 
estimate, to $6.3 billion to characterize the Yucca Mountain site. Over 
$5 billion has been spent. I must tell you, Mr. President, that a great 
deal of that money has been really wasted. I mean, they have gone to 
such incredible lengths.
  There is the desert tortoise. I care about the desert tortoise. It is 
a threatened species. But they have environmentalists that put radio 
collars and have satellites checking on where the desert tortoise is 
going, spending millions of dollars; people, especially dedicated 
environmentalists, working out there on the desert tortoise. You know, 
when you do that across the board, with some of the other heroic things 
they have done, it is just incredible. What we are saying, Mr. 
President, is we need to get on with the business of building this 
facility or making a decision on what we are going to do on the 
facility.
  People have criticized the Department of Energy for waste in this 
facility. I believe, Mr. President, much of the blame for these 
escalating costs for this tremendous waste lies right here with the 
Congress.
  We have not been willing to learn what this whole issue is about. We 
have been willing to accept any scare story that anybody says, and in 
the process keep putting it off year after year. For the editorials and 
some of the criticism to say we are rushing to judgment on this issue, 
when we have known the solutions for years and we keep putting it off 
because each year is somebody's election year--this year it is a 
Presidential election year. Last year, one of the Senators was up for 
reelection. It is that way every time.
  Mr. President, we have reached a crisis situation, politically, on 
this issue. Now pending in the D.C. Court of Appeals is litigation 
which seeks to declare invalid the contracts underlying whole Nuclear 
Waste Policy Act, the 1-mill fee that is collected on nuclear plants in 
order to build these facilities, and it puts at risk--I think we have 
about a $5 billion accumulated fund which would be at risk if the D.C. 
circuit is waiting to see what Congress does. Frankly, it is my guess 
that is exactly why they have been delaying this decision past what is 
their normal schedule of rendering decisions. If they are waiting for 
the Congress to act or to determine whether the Congress acts, and if 
we fail to act in Congress, then we may have a full-scale crises on our 
hands, because they may well declare the contracts to be invalid.
  If they do that, then it is 76 sites around the country in 34 States 
and, in turn, we would see a real reaction from the people in 34 States 
that begin to realize they are being victimized as having a site for 
nuclear waste.
  Mr. President, what we propose is a system that will work. 
Construction on the interim facility would not begin until 1999. 
Construction on the permanent facility would not begin until 
considerably after that. We have high confidence Yucca Mountain will be 
considered suitable. If it is not, we need to determine that just as 
soon as possible and move on to another permanent facility.
  Mr. President, what we propose in this legislation is reasonable. It 
is necessary. Believe me, Mr. President, it would be irresponsible to 
do otherwise. The problem is not going to go away. There are upwards of 
40,000 metric tons of nuclear waste around the country today and 
additional nuclear waste is being generated each and every day. It is 
not a problem that goes away. It is not a problem that is being dealt 
with today. The interim storage facility would be much safer than 
keeping it on site. The permanent facility will be better still.
  Mr. President, we need to get on with this process and pass this 
legislation. I hope the Congress will do the responsible thing, and I 
hope we will pass this legislation at the appropriate time.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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