[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 104 (Tuesday, July 16, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7856-S7877]
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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, over the course of the last good number of 
days, I believe the American public has grown increasingly aware of the 
fact that the Senate has been brought to a near halt by Senators who 
have made every effort to use the rules, as they are entitled to in the 
Senate, to not allow this Senate or this Congress to consider a very 
important piece of national policy. That policy rests on how we, as a 
country, will deal with the issue of nuclear waste.
  Every other country in the world that uses nuclear energy to fuel its 
factories and light its lights has determined that a critical part of 
the whole of the use of nuclear energy is to adequately handle and 
manage the waste

[[Page S7857]]

stream that comes from it, so that their public can be aware and 
confident of the fact that all comes together in a total picture. 
Interestingly enough, most of those countries who do this use the very 
technology that has been developed in our country to manage their 
waste. Yet, in our country, that has simply not been the case. We, for 
whatever reason--and mostly political, and certainly not as a result of 
science and technology--have argued that this waste should be allowed 
to build up in a variety of storage facilities around the Nation at the 
numerous sites--some 80 sites--within 41 States.
  As a result of this policy, or absence of policy, today, we are 
charting a course that will throw nearly a third of our electrical-
generating capacity at some time in the future into jeopardy, because 
it will be impossible, or nearly impossible, for utilities who have 
been granted the permission by their public to build nuclear-generating 
facilities to allow those to continue to generate if they cannot manage 
their waste stream or be allowed to manage it within the technology 
available.
  Senate bill 1936 is legislation that we now have before us that moves 
this issue. It says to the American public, and to the generating 
companies of our country, that we believe a sound, continuous policy in 
our country, by our Government, is critical for the long-term future of 
this generating capacity, but, beyond that, for the wise and 
responsible management of the waste stream that is generated.
  Through all kinds of environmental laws over the last two decades, 
we, as a Government and as a people, have said very clearly that 
certain kinds of waste or certain kinds of issuances that could result 
in some sort of environmental degradation are to be handled in strict, 
responsible ways. Yet, with the issue of nuclear energy and nuclear 
high-level waste, we have simply walked away from it.
  In the mid-1980's, we finally said: Here is a policy and we are going 
to ask those who are the benefactors of the nuclear energy--the 
ratepayers--to pay a certain amount into the trust fund for the purpose 
of developing a long-term storage policy, a managed storage policy, in 
the sense of a deep geologic repository. Yet, because of lawsuits, 
because of the politics of the issue, very little has been done to keep 
the promise made to the ratepayers of our country and, at the same 
time, to make sure that at some point, whether it is the President or 
myself, we can turn to the American public and say that we have done 
the right and responsible thing.
  And we as a nation all have to share in it. But we know what we are 
doing is sound scientifically, it is sound engineering, and we believe 
that S. 1936 is a reflection of that growing attitude.
  As a result of that, I introduce this legislation, a bill that amends 
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. S. 1936 retains the fundamental 
goals and structure of the substitute which was Senate bill 1271 which 
we were able to report out of the Energy and Natural Resources 
Committee in March. However, S. 1936 contains many important 
clarifications and changes that deal with concerns raised regarding the 
details of that legislation by a number of Members of our Senate.
  In addition, we took into account the provisions of H.R. 1020 
introduced by our counterparts in the House Commerce Committee, and 
that passed the House by an overwhelming bipartisan vote a year ago. We 
adopted much of the language found in H.R. 1020 in order to make the 
bill as similar to the bill under consideration in the House as we 
possibly could. I have already begun discussions with House Members who 
are principals in the development of H.R. 1020. We think we can come to 
agreement very quickly on the differences between these two separate 
pieces of legislation.
  So I would like to describe what I think are some of the important 
significant changes we have made. S. 1936, the bill before us that we 
are debating today, eliminates certain provisions contained in the 
legislation that came from the committee that would have eliminated the 
application of the National Environmental Policy Act to the intermodal 
transfer facility and impose a general limitation on NEPA's application 
to the Secretary's additions to only those NEPA requirements specified 
in the bill.
  What am I saying? In short order, I am saying no environmental laws 
are shortcut. While we believe we clearly are at a time when this issue 
must be dealt with, we also are going to say to the American people and 
to the Senators who want to vote on this legislation and support us, 
``No environmental laws are shortcut.'' This will allay the concern 
that sufficient environmental analysis would not be done under 1271.
  S. 1936 clarifies that the transportation of spent fuel shall be 
governed by the requirement of Federal, State, and local governments.
  I know that my colleague who is now presiding in the Chair has a very 
real concern about transportation of this waste item. What we are 
saying--and what I am saying to the Presiding Officer at this moment--
is that State and local communities will have full participation under 
the Federal law and the Federal Hazardous Waste Transportation Act of 
being full participants in deciding how this waste moves there with 
this particular jurisdiction in concert with the Federal Government.
  S. 1936 also allows that the Secretary provide technical assistance 
to fund training of the unions, with the expertise and safety training 
for transportation workers. We want to make sure that what is being 
done right today is done right in the future, and that the American 
public can have the kind of satisfaction in knowing that literally 
thousands and thousands of shipments of high-level nuclear waste that 
we have had in our country over the last number of decades with only 
seven accidents--none of them jeopardizing the containers in which the 
nuclear waste was being transported; not a one of them ever putting the 
public in jeopardy--is the kind of professionalism and expertise that 
we are going to have in the future.

  In addition, S. 1936 clarifies that existing employee protection in 
title 40 of the United States Code only addressing the refusal to work 
in hazardous conditions apply to transportation under this act. It also 
provides that certain inspection activities will be carried out by car 
men and operating crews, only if they are adequately trained.
  Finally, S. 1936 provides authority for the Secretary of 
Transportation to establish training standards as necessary for workers 
engaged in the transportation, storage, and disposal of spent fuel and 
high-level waste.
  Mr. President, what is important in this legislation now in the area 
of transportation--and why it ought to become law now--is that we have 
the kind of adequate time necessary to go through what I have just 
talked about--effective and responsible training of those critical 
crews that will be managing the units of transportation that move the 
high-level waste to a permanent repository. If we wait another decade, 
if we wait until the lights in the Northeast start going out, if we 
wait until public pressure is so great because we are having brown outs 
because nuclear reactors have been shut down because the public will 
not allow for additional storage space on site, are we going to have 
the lead time, the kind of responsible, cautious time necessary to make 
sure that which we do is as professional as it has been in the past and 
it is today? My suggestion is we will not have that time. All of a 
sudden we will be in a panic nationwide because we failed to act 
responsibly, and as a result of that kind of failure we are now in a 
catch-up mode to handle these kinds of issues so that these reactors 
can stay on line so that nearly a third of our power source can 
continue to light the lights of our cities and our factories.
  In order to ensure that the size and the scope of the interim storage 
facility is manageable in the context of the overall nuclear waste 
program, and yet adequate to address the Nation's immediate spent fuel 
storage needs, S. 1936 would limit the size of phase 1 of the interim 
storage facility to 15,000 metric tons of spent fuel and the size of 
phase 2 of the facility to 40,000 metric tons. Phase 2 of the facility 
would be expandable to 60,000 metric tons, if the Secretary fails to 
meet her projected goals with regard to site characterization and 
licensing of the permanent repository site.
  In other words, if all goes well, as it should so that we honor our 
commitment and our promises in the law that

[[Page S7858]]

we are now working under and in the new legislation being proposed, 
basically we are talking about a facility that would never expand 
beyond 40,000 metric tons and would begin to reduce that size the 
moment the permanent geologic repository comes on line, in contrast to 
the legislation that we have taken from the table, S. 1271. It provided 
for storage of 20,000 metric tons of spent fuel in phase I and 100,000 
metric tons in phase 2.
  So, Mr. President, what we have done is a substantial downsizing of 
the interim facility that would be the primary recipient location for 
fuels coming in to be characterized ready to go to the permanent 
repository. I would like to clarify that the new volumes are clearly 
sufficient to allow storage of current spent Navy fuel.
  Mr. President, something that a lot of people do not realize as we 
debate these issues--certainly as it is true with commercial reactors--
we know this legislation is largely geared to remove the spent fuel, or 
the nuclear high-level waste from the site of the reactor to take it to 
permanent repository. But what we have also done from the act of the 
mid-1980's which began this whole process, we have now included 
defense, or Federal waste. In my State of Idaho, for example, we are 
the recipient of every spent fuel rod that comes out of a Navy reactor; 
the nuclear Navy. We have been the recipient of those since the very 
first beginning of the Rickover nuclear Navy. As a result of us 
receiving them, studying them, and researching them, we have created 
phenomenal efficiencies and safety for the nuclear crew. But for any 
State that enjoys a nuclear Navy, enjoys it docked within their States, 
enjoys the revenue and the employees of a nuclear Navy, Idaho, my 
State, is the recipient of the fuel rods that come from those States. 
Other States also have Federal high-level nuclear waste, and we have 
expanded the authority of the law by these amendments to assure that 
the permanent repository site in Nevada at Yucca Mountain will not be 
just for commercial fuel but will be for Federal Government's high-
level waste and Federal Government high-level waste fuel. It is 
important to understand that.

  Unlike S. 1271, which provided for unlimited use of existing 
facilities at the Nevada test site for handling spent fuels at the 
interim facility, S. 1936 allows only the use of those facilities for 
emergency situations during phase 1 of the interim facility. So, in 
other words, we built some flexibility in there for emergency 
situations, but it is so designated within that 1,500-metric-ton 
requirement. The facility should not be needed during phase 1, and 
construction of new facilities will be overseen by the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission for any fuel handling during phase 2 of the 
interim facility.
  S. 1271, the old bill that came from the committee, would have set 
standards for release of radioactivity from the repository at a maximum 
annual dosage to an average member of the general public in the 
vicinity of Yucca Mountain at 100 millirems. There is a lot of debate 
about what 100 millirems of exposure is. But I would hate to tell you 
that you and I receive that kind of exposure on an annual basis by 
simply being in the city of Washington, DC. If you want to live in 
Denver, CO, on an annualized basis you are going to receive 
substantially more exposure than the 100 millirems.
  What am I talking about? I am talking about a measurement of 
radioactivity that is so low that anyone in or around the Yucca 
Mountain storage facility would in no way ever find themselves at risk 
as a result of this exposure. Clearly, the Federal Government, under 
the auspices of all of the engineering and the science that is 
available, has every intent to build a facility that is as safe as can 
humanly be built and to meet international standards, national and 
international risk standards designed to protect public health and 
safety and the environment.
  I said in some of my comments on the floor this morning, this ought 
to be called the No. 1 environmental legislation of the 104th Congress. 
I believe it is just that, because I think it acts in a responsible way 
to assure that the human environments in which we all find ourselves 
are never put at risk by exposure to high-level nuclear waste 
materials.
  While maintaining an initial 100-millirem standard, S. 1936 would 
allow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to apply another standard, and 
I think this is very important for the record to show. If it finds that 
the standard in this legislation--let me repeat--if the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, under new science and new findings, found that 
what we are proposing is inadequate, then they would be allowed to 
advance that proposition and to deal with it in a way that would change 
it, modify it to bring it down to a lower standard or a different 
standard. In other words, we are not closing the door or turning off 
the lights to the idea that science advances itself, and if we find 
reason to believe that science would argue that 100 millirems, under 
the current national and international safety standards, is not 
adequate, then we allow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to apply 
another standard.
  S. 1936, the legislation before us, contains provisions, not found in 
S. 1271, that would grant financial and technical assistance for 
oversight activities and payments in lieu of taxes to the affected 
units of local government and Indian tribes within the State of Nevada. 
I know, while my colleagues from Nevada are making every argument 
possible to block this legislation because of the political 
consequences that they recognize might be the case in their State, we 
have also been dealing openly with local units of government in the 
State of Nevada. There are local units of government who believe this 
is positive, from the standpoint of the economics it brings and the 
long-term employment, and because they have done their homework and 
they recognize the very real safety involved in this kind of management 
approach. So what I am telling you is we recognize the Indian tribes 
involved, and the local units of government, and the payment in lieu of 
taxes to their affected communities as a result of their willingness to 
work cooperatively with the Federal Government. S. 1936 also contains 
new provisions transferring certain Bureau of Land Management parcels 
in Nye County, NV.

  In order to ensure that moneys collected for the nuclear waste fund 
are utilized for purposes of the nuclear waste program beginning in 
fiscal year 2003, S. 1936 would convert the current nuclear waste fee 
that is paid by electrical consumers into a user fee that is assessed 
based upon the level of appropriations for the year in which the fee is 
collected. In other words, those who are the beneficiaries of nuclear 
power pay for the facility and continue to pay for the facility. This 
has always been the understanding. We are not reaching out to taxpayers 
in States that are not the beneficiaries of the kind of abundance that 
is brought through a nuclear reactor producing power in their State; 
only those who are the recipients of it.
  That is not to say there will not be Federal expenses. There are 
clearly some as it relates to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its 
management responsibility and the Department of Energy and its ongoing 
management responsibility. But, Mr. President, you and I both know that 
we, as a government, our Nation's Government, has always kept its arms 
around the whole of the nuclear issue. It has been something that has 
not been automatically farmed out in toto to the private sector.
  As a result of that, I, once again, return to what I believe is a 
fundamental responsibility of good government and that is we have an 
endgame for the nuclear issue. To date, we have not decided, as a 
country, to do that. We can fuel our Navy ships, we can light the 
lights of our cities, we can protect the world by the use of the atom, 
we can treat sick people by the use of the atom. But when it comes to 
the waste product created by those kinds of activities, we said: ``Go 
away. Not in my backyard. I am frightened of it, or my people are 
frightened of it.'' Yet, interestingly enough, there literally is not a 
basis for fear but the fear itself, because we know how to handle it, 
and science has argued that we handle it very, very well.
  Section 408 of S. 1271 provided authority for the Secretary to 
execute emergency relief contracts with certain eligible utilities that 
would provide for qualified entities to ship, store, and condition 
spent nuclear fuel. This provision concerned some Members who feared it 
could be interpreted

[[Page S7859]]

to provide new authority for reprocessing in this country or abroad. 
This provision is not contained in 1936. In other words, let me repeat, 
any fear that could have been argued that there might be an effort to 
reprocess fuel, there might be an effort to expand the ability that 
could create proliferation in our country, is now taken out of the 
legislation. S. 1936 has none of those provisions within it.
  S. 1271 contained a provision that stated the actions authorized by 
the bill would be governed only by the requirements of the Nuclear 
Waste Policy Act, the Atomic Energy Act, and the Hazardous Materials 
Transportation Act. S. 1936 eliminates this provision. Again, I 
recognize the concerns the chairman has expressed. We have gone 
directly at those concerns. Instead, we provide that for any law that 
is inconsistent with the provisions of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and 
the Atomic Energy Act, those acts will govern. In other words, when it 
comes to hazardous material's transportation, we take nobody out of the 
loop. We short-circuit no one, and we allow local units of government 
and States to be direct participants.

  S. 1936 further provides that any requirement of a State or local 
government is preempted only if complying with the State and local 
requirements and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act are beyond current law, 
and are impossible. In other words, we cannot, by this law, simply walk 
away from roadblocks that are intended to be put up for the purposes of 
blocking the road. That cannot be allowed. Certainly, under the 
interstate commerce clause of the Constitution, I think we all 
recognize that is so, understanding that we clearly are saying we want 
it to be the safest possible, as it is today. We want the American 
people to know that what we are doing is safe and responsible, and that 
is exactly what the act requires.
  This language is consistent with the preemption authority founded on 
the existing Hazardous Materials Transportation Act. In other words, we 
have taken the law today that makes our highways safe in the use or 
transporting of hazardous materials and we said, ``no exceptions to the 
rule.''
  S. 1936 authorizes the Secretary to take title to spent fuel at the 
Dairyland Power Consumers La Crosse reactor, and authorizes the 
Secretary to pay for the on-site storage of the fuel until DOE removes 
the fuel from the site under terms of the act. This is a provision that 
I felt was necessary to equitably address concerns in Wisconsin and 
Iowa. Of course, that goes back to previous Government actions that 
place the Government in a position of responsibility for those stored 
fuels.
  S. 1936 contains language making a number of changes designed to 
improve the management of the nuclear waste program, to ensure the 
program is operated, to the maximum extent possible, in like manner to 
a private business. I feel this will improve the overall management of 
the spent-fuel program.

  Finally, the bill contains language that addressed Senator Johnston's 
concerns. The language in S. 1936 provides that construction will not 
begin on an interim storage facility at Yucca Mountain before December 
31, 1998. In other words, for those who are concerned about 
transportation, we are giving phenomenal lead time through the year 
1999 to make sure that all of the systems are in place, because the 
facility, to receive those shipments, could not be ready before that 
with construction beginning on or after December 31, 1998.
  I am most pleased we have been able to work with Senator Johnston. He 
has led on this issue for years and is clearly one of the leading 
authorities in this body, if not in the country, as it relates to 
current policy on nuclear waste and nuclear waste management, and we 
have worked very closely with him in assuring that this bill met a 
large number of his concerns.
  The bill provides for the delivery of an assessment of the viability 
of the Yucca Mountain site to the President and to Congress by the 
Secretary of Energy 6 months before the construction can begin on an 
interim facility. In other words, we are not destroying existing law. 
We are simply expediting the activities that would have to start after 
the certification of the facility or the site at Yucca Mountain.
  We are saying, in essence, get your engineering studies done, get 
your design studies done, get yourself ready to go so that by 1999, 
construction can begin if, in fact, the site has been certificated. If, 
based upon the information before him, the President determines in his 
discretion that Yucca Mountain is not suitable--and he may find that, 
the studies might indicate that, for the development of the repository 
we are talking about--then the Secretary shall cease work on both the 
interim and permanent repository program at the Yucca Mountain site.
  The bill further provides that if the President makes such a 
determination, he shall have 18 months to designate an interim storage 
facility site. If the President fails to designate--in other words, 
this is something you cannot pass go on, the clock is still ticking, 
the lights are still on, but they could still be dimming, Mr. 
President--whomever is the President at that time, they simply have the 
responsibility, as does the Congress, to deal with this issue in a 
forthright manner.
  We say, if the President fails to designate a site or the site has 
not been approved by Congress within 2 years of its determination, the 
Secretary is instructed to construct an interim storage facility at the 
Yucca Mountain site in Nevada or at the test site 51 out in the deserts 
of the national test area in Nevada.
  The provisions ensure that the construction of an interim storage 
facility at Yucca Mountain site will not occur before the President and 
Congress have had ample opportunity to review the technical assessments 
of the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site for a permanent 
repository and to designate an alternative site for interim storage 
based upon technical information.
  However, this provision also ensures that ultimately an interim 
storage facility site will be chosen. In other words, what we are 
saying, Mr. President, is ``you can't pass go.'' At some point and in 
the future, in the very near future, we as a Government must act 
responsibly for the sake of our Nation, for the sake of our energy base 
and for the sake of our environment. Without the assurance, we leave 
open the possibility we would find in 1998 we have no interim storage, 
no permanent repository program, and after more than 15 years and $6 
billion spent, we are back to where we started in 1981 when we passed 
the first version of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. This is within the 
50 States of the Union. What we are saying is, we must find a facility 
to store the waste in a safe and responsible way.

  Coupled with that, Mr. President, are a variety of other agreements. 
For example, in my State, my Governor has negotiated under a Federal 
court order an agreement with the Department of Energy that by certain 
dates at the turn of the century waste begins to leave our State. If we 
do not have the facility built, then the Governor has the power of the 
Federal courts to say, ``No more shipments.'' In this instance, no more 
shipments of spent-nuclear fuel.
  What happens to our nuclear Navy at that time that has no other place 
for repository? Does waste pile up on the docks at the refueling sites 
around on the east and west coasts? I doubt that happens.
  Yet, at the same time, the State of Idaho and the Federal court says 
that if the Federal Government fails to respond and fails to react in 
prescription with the agreement and certainly consistent with the 
legislation that we are debating this afternoon, then there are no more 
shipments.
  What happens at that point? That is why we are here. That is why we 
are asking our colleagues to act responsibly in working with us and 
with the American public to assure we move legislation, law, policy 
and, therefore, end result, the development of an interim storage 
facility and a permanent repository on the timely basis that we all 
want to see happen.
  This issue provides a clear and simple choice: We can choose to have 
one remote, safe, and secure nuclear waste storage facility, or, 
through inaction and delay, we can perpetuate the status quo and have 
80 such sites spread across our Nation.
  As I have said in my earlier comments, what happens when the sites 
fill and the public in the 80 locations say,

[[Page S7860]]

``We don't want additional storage at that location''? What does the 
State government do? What does the public utility of that State do? Do 
they turn to the utility involved and say, ``Turn it off, shut it 
down''?
  Twenty-five percent or so of the power capacity largely in the 
Northeast and Midwest is dependent upon this kind of energy production. 
I do not think that is what we want to happen. That is why the majority 
leader, when he read the facts, looked at it and saw this was a time 
when clearly it was important for this Congress to move, that the 
legislation was ready, that it stood in a bipartisan fashion that we 
had worked out and negotiated all of the necessary changes to make sure 
we were able to do this.
  It is irresponsible to shirk our responsibility to protect the 
environment and the future of our children and our grandchildren. This 
Nation needs to confront nuclear waste management and the problem 
facing it is now. I do urge my colleagues to vote for cloture as we 
move down the line, as we did today, by a large number. It is time we 
expedite getting this to the floor for a final vote, that we work with 
our colleagues in the House, and that we ask our President to share 
with us in this national responsibility.
  We have contacted the executive branch of Government time and time 
again over the course of the last 2 years. Chairman Frank Murkowski, 
chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in four 
different pieces of correspondence has said, ``Mr. President, if you 
don't agree with us, then show us what you can agree with so that we 
can work together to assure a responsible end to this very, very 
critical problem.''

  As a result of that, nothing. The answer back was nothing. The answer 
today was political. Mr. President, this is an issue that goes beyond 
politics. It must go to policy, it must go to action, it must go to a 
public that knows that this Senate and the House and the President 
together have acted in a responsible way to assure the effective and 
the appropriate management of high-level nuclear waste in our country, 
both commercial and Government-generated waste. S. 1936 gives us that.
  After over a year and a half of compromise in building this key piece 
of legislation, we are now to the floor and asking our colleagues to 
participate with us in passing this legislation.
  I see no one else on the floor at this time, so 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. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, for a few moments I want to discuss the 
issue of transportation safety. This morning I went back to my office 
after there had been some debate on the floor about transportation 
safety in this country. I know that it is a key concern to a good many 
Senators, including yourself, as waste moves from across the country to 
a central location, as to how that waste will be handled.
  I saw something that surprised even me even though I have had the 
privilege over the years to see some of the containers in which nuclear 
waste is transported. What I would like to enter into the Record now 
and show for the Senators is some of what I watched on the videotape.
  Scary statements have been made by the Senators from Nevada that 
there would be risk. I think they were using a term that was of their 
invention called a mobile Chernobyl. That is a dramatic statement that 
absolutely has no basis of truth because we have been transporting 
waste for a good number of years, and simply it does not exist. I will 
suggest why.
  As a matter of fact, there have been 2,400 shipments of spent nuclear 
fuel by the nuclear energy industry, and others, over the past 25 
years. No fatality, no injury or environmental damage has ever occurred 
because of radioactive cargo. There have been accidents, yes, but the 
casks have performed as designed.
  What I saw this morning, Mr. President, in the video was exactly what 
happened. Here is one of the pictures. This picture is of a flatbed 
truck over here with one of the casks on it. And that flatbed truck 
went down a roadway and it struck a solid concrete wall, a 700-ton 
concrete wall, at 80 miles an hour. If you saw this on videotape, you 
can begin to understand the dramatics of it.
  The truck's cab literally disappeared. This bright orange object, 
which is the container itself, bounced up against the concrete wall, 
because by then the cab of the truck had been pulverized, and it 
bounced back. Afterward, technicians were beginning to peel off from 
the face of this orange cask an object of metal. And your first 
reaction is, Mr. President, well, that is the cask. It was damaged. It 
was the cab of the truck that had literally been peeled around this 
object, this cask that holds the spent nuclear rods. The cask was 
undamaged.
  Another picture is of a similar flatbed truck that is parked across a 
railroad crossing. Of course, this material can be transported both by 
truck and by rail. The naval waste that comes to Idaho is transported 
by rail. The truck is parked in the middle of a railroad crossing. As a 
result of that, a locomotive, traveling at 80 miles an hour, broadsides 
it. And the weight is a 120-ton locomotive. Again, the orange object 
itself is the cask that stores the nuclear objects. It bounces 
literally as this locomotive hits it. Again, test after test after 
test.
  This container was originally designed to be dropped from the air. 
The reason was because we anticipated aerial transportation. So all of 
the designs required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that is 
what it has to do. How about dropping it from 30,000 feet, originally? 
Well, that is what it was designed to do. Here is a drop from 30 feet 
now on to an unyielding surface.

  Mr. President, it is important to remember that every other surface 
is yielding. The ground itself is a yielding surface because when you 
hit it with heavy impact, it gives, it bounces, it breaks away. In this 
case, the surface is solid concrete. It was dropped 30 feet on to a 
solid concrete surface with a steel spike sticking up out of it with 
the intent of penetrating the container itself. What happens? The 
container bounces off. As a result, again, no damaging of the 
container.
  Here is an example. It is engulfed in 1,475 degrees Fahrenheit, a 
fire for 30 minutes; submerged under 3 feet of water for 8 hours. All 
of those are part of the video test. The container, again, was never 
ruptured. There was no jeopardy. There was no leak of radioactivity.
  The reason I bring these issues to the floor is because my colleagues 
keep saying, ``high-risk transportation.'' That is why we have had over 
2,400 shipments over the last several decades, Mr. President, and no 
one--no one--has been injured as a result of the release of 
radioactivity. Simply because--guess what?--our Government did it 
right.
  Admiral Rickover did it right. The industry and the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission did it right. They required that the containers 
that transport this high-level waste be so impenetrable that nothing 
could happen to them. And that is exactly what has happened. In all the 
tests, as in seven real-world accidents, the transportation containers 
retained their integrity and would have kept their radioactive material 
sealed safely inside. That is extremely important for the record.
  Whether it is the 30-foot or the 100-foot drop, whether it is the 
raging locomotive at 80 miles an hour at 120 tons, whether it is the 
truck itself going at 80 miles an hour into a solid concrete wall, the 
bottom line, Mr. President, is in no instances have we had jeopardy and 
release of radioactivity.
  I hope we are able in some way to allay the concerns that a lot of 
our citizens have that while this material is being transported through 
the countryside to a safe and permanent location, that we would not, 
nor would this law ever allow, nor certainly in the case of current law 
does it allow, our citizens to be at risk.
  Transportation is an issue, and it will always be one. It is very 
easy to stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate and talk about a 
catastrophe, talk about a situation that could create a safety problem 
for millions of Americans. Now, Mr. President, if that situation 
exists, I do not know where it exists. The reason I do not know where 
it

[[Page S7861]]

exists is because this country has been in the business for well over 
three decades now of transporting high-level nuclear waste across the 
Nation, into our State of Idaho, from all points where naval vessels 
are refueled. We have transported it in other forms from commercial 
reactors to Federal facilities for purposes of tests and research, and 
all instances they have tracked with similar containers to these shown 
in the pictures, and there has never been an accident in which 
radioactivity is released.
  Let me make sure the record is perfectly clear: There have been 
accidents. I understand there have been seven-some accidents out of the 
2,400 shipments. Those accidents resulted in, I am sure, damage to 
property and probably injury to individuals, but there was no 
environmental injury. There was no release of radioactivity. That, of 
course, is the test here. That is the argument of my colleagues from 
the State of Nevada that somehow 50 million Americans are going to be 
put in jeopardy. Not so, Mr. President. It just ``ain't'' so, or we 
would not be here today talking about legislation. There is not a 
Member of the U.S. Senate who would want to or who in any knowing way 
would ever put any of their citizenry or those people whom they serve 
and represent in jeopardy.
  The thing that is exciting for me to stand on the floor of the U.S. 
Senate after we have researched it, after we have studied and 
understood what the industry is about, what DOE has done, what the Navy 
is doing, what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires, is that I 
can stand here and believe with all of my energy that what we offer is 
the safest possible approach for the movement and the transportation of 
this waste to a permanent repository. That is the way all of these 
issues ought to be handled. That is what the American public deserves, 
a fair and honest debate and the assurance of the kind of safety that 
is provided now by industry, by defense, and by our Government.
  This legislation in no way short-circuits any of that. In fact, we 
have assured that all of the environmental laws, all of the 
transportation laws, all of that in S. 1936, all fit together and in no 
way do we bypass existing law or existing protection. Those are the 
facts. Now, you can choose to judge them in different ways, but you 
cannot dispute the simple fact. The simple fact, in 2,400 shipments 
over the course of the last 30 years, 2,400 shipments in containers 
like the container I have shown you in these pictures and charts this 
afternoon, never once was one ruptured or jeopardized in a way that 
caused an environmental release that would have, had people been near 
it, placed them in jeopardy. Those are the facts. That is the reality 
of how we handle this issue.
  I am pleased I have had an opportunity to be part of what is a very 
critical debate and a very important piece of public policy to our 
country. I yield the floor.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have listened carefully to the 
Senator from Idaho relative to the merits of addressing once and for 
all the disposal of our high-level nuclear waste.
  Mr. President, how much time is remaining on both sides?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska has 76 minutes 
remaining, the Senator from Louisiana, Mr. Johnston, has 22 minutes, 
the Senator from Nevada, Mr. Reid, has 121 minutes, and the Senator 
from Nevada, Mr. Bryan, has 180 minutes.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I will discuss with my colleagues a number of items 
relative to disposition of the nuclear waste debate that is going on. 
The first item would be a letter dated July 15, 1996, by Mr. Panetta. 
Mr. Panetta, of course, is the President's right-hand man. I ask 
unanimous consent the letter be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                              The White House,

                                        Washington, July 15, 1996.
     Hon. Thomas A. Daschle,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Daschle: I would like to express the 
     Administration's position on S. 1936, a bill to create a 
     centralized interim high-level nuclear waste storage facility 
     in Nevada. The Administration cannot support this bill, and 
     the President would veto it if the bill were presented to him 
     in its present form.
       The Administration believes it is important to continue 
     work on a permanent geologic repository. According to the 
     National Academy of Science, there is a world-wide scientific 
     consensus that permanent geologic disposal is the best option 
     for disposing of commercial and other high-level nuclear 
     waste. This is why the Administration has emphasized cutting 
     costs and improving the management and performance of the 
     permanent site characterization efforts underway at Yucca 
     Mountain, Nevada. 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.
       Designating the Nevada Test Site as the interim waste site, 
     as S. 1936 effectively does, will undermine the ongoing Yucca 
     Mountain evaluation work by siphoning away resources. Perhaps 
     more importantly, the enactment of this bill will destroy the 
     credibility of the Nation's nuclear waste disposal program by 
     prejudicing the Yucca Mountain permanent repository decision. 
     Choosing a site for an interim storage facility should be 
     based upon objective science-based criteria and should not be 
     made before the viability of the Yucca site is determined in 
     the next two years. This viability assessment, undertaken by 
     the Department of Energy, will be completed by 1998.
       Some have alleged that we need to move spent commercial 
     fuel rods to a central interim now. According to a recent 
     report from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB), 
     an independent board established by Congress, there is no 
     technical or safety reason to move spent fuel to an interim 
     central storage facility for the next several years. The 
     Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has determined that 
     current technology and methods of storing spent fuel at 
     reactors are safe. If they were not safe, the NRC would not 
     license these storage facilities. Also, the NWTRB assures us 
     that adequate at-reactor storage space is, and will remain, 
     available for many years.
       In S. 1936, the Nevada Test Site is the default site, even 
     if it proves to be unsuitable for the permanent repository. 
     This is bad policy. This bill has many other problems, 
     including those that present serious environmental concerns. 
     The bill weakens existing environmental standards by 
     preempting all Federal, state and local laws and applying 
     only the environmental requirements of this bill and the 
     Atomic Energy Act. The results of this preemption include: 
     replacing the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to 
     set acceptable radiation release standards with a statutory 
     standard considerably in excess of the exposure permitted by 
     current regulations; creating loopholes in the National 
     Environmental Policy Act; and eliminating current licensing 
     requirements for a permanent repository.
       I hope that you will not support S. 1936. It is an unfair, 
     unneeded, and unworkable bill. We have the time to develop 
     legislation and plan for an interim storage facility in a 
     fairer and scientifically valid way while being sensitive to 
     the concerns of all affected parties. This includes those in 
     Nevada, those along the rail and roadways over which the 
     nuclear waste will travel, and those who depend on and live 
     near the current operating commercial nuclear power plants.
       Thank you for your consideration of these views.
           Sincerely,
                                                   Leon E. Panetta
                                                   Chief of Staff.

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. According to Mr. Panetta, the President opposes our 
bill since it would designate Nevada as the interim site without 
determining the viability of Yucca Mountain, NV, as a permanent 
repository.
  Let me provide the White House with a little factual information. 
Senate bill 1936, which Senator Craig and I have proposed, prohibits, 
specifically prohibits, the construction of an interim facility in 
Nevada until December 31, 1998. That is after the determination of 
Yucca's suitability. That is as a consequence of Senator Johnston's 
input.
  The Panetta letter says that ``the bill weakens existing 
environmental standards by preempting all Federal, State, and local 
laws.'' The facts of the matter, Senate bill 1936 does not provide NEPA 
waivers and other provisions in our earlier bill, Senate bill 1271. We 
do not permit, however, environmental laws to be misused or to have to 
go back and revisit decisions made by Congress in this bill, decisions 
such as the fact that we will have an interim facility and that will be 
in Nevada after the Yucca Mountain site has been shown to be viable.
  Mr. President, everybody should understand the permanent repository 
effort continues at Yucca Mountain. The merits of Yucca Mountain to be 
ascertained as a permanent repository depend primarily on two issues: 
One is licensing; the other is suitability.
  That is an issue ongoing, an issue that will be addressed. In the 
meantime, we have waste accumulating at more than 80-some-odd sites in 
41

[[Page S7862]]

States. What we propose here is we have an interim facility to take 
that waste from those States and put it at Yucca until such time as it 
can be determined that Yucca meets the requirements of a permanent 
repository.
  Now, I do not know who wrote the letter at the White House for the 
Chief of Staff, but I am inclined to think that person was reading the 
old bill, Senate bill 1271, rather than the new bill, Senate bill 1936. 
We attempted to address concerns by the administration and others in 
the new bill, Senate bill 1936, which was more or less a composite, if 
you will, of many of the things that people felt were wrong in Senate 
bill 1271. We put together what amounts to a chairman's mark or a 
consensus to move this bill forward.
  I will provide my colleagues with a little background on our efforts 
to address this with this current administration. I personally worked 
for the past 15 months, upon achieving the chairmanship of the Energy 
and Natural Resources Committee, to bring the administration into a 
constructive, into a bipartisan dialog, to try to address responsibly 
this problem.
  As you know, Mr. President, being from Alaska, I do not have a dog in 
this fight, so to speak. Alaska, while we are interested in solving the 
problem, does not currently have any nuclear waste and is not looking 
for a repository. But I have a responsibility, just as the other 99 
Senators, to address what is an environmental problem for this country, 
and this is an opportunity to correct an environmental deficiency with 
some positive legislation--legislation that would move from these sites 
this material to one site in Nevada that has been used for over 50 
years for all types of nuclear testing.

  Nobody wants the waste, Mr. President. I am sympathetic to my friends 
from Nevada relative to the position they are in. On the other hand, it 
has to go somewhere. It is a simple deduction of where are you going to 
put it if nobody wants it? We created it in this country. The 
consequences of it speak for themselves: on the positive side, 
generating power. Also on the positive side, contributing toward a 
lasting peace and breaking up the Soviet Union in an arms race. These 
were all part of the nuclear commitment of this country.
  On the downside, of course, is the waste associated with this, 
whether it be weapons grade or waste that comes from our nuclear 
reactors. We currently depend on nearly a third of our power generated 
to come from nuclear energy. We simply have to address it with a 
resolve.
  On April 7, 1995, I wrote a letter. That letter was directed to our 
President. At that time, I was the newly elected chairman on the 
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. I indicated that ``one of my 
top priorities was to help meet this challenge facing the Nation''--I 
am quoting here--``in developing a safe, scientific, sound means of 
managing spent fuel.''
  Given the Department of Energy's announcement that it recently had 
made in that timeframe of April 1995 that it could not meet its 
obligations to begin accepting nuclear waste in 1998, I indicated to 
the President that we must address this issue in an aggressive and 
forthright manner.
  So there we were, Mr. President, back in 1995, and the Department of 
Energy announced they would not have the capability of accepting the 
nuclear waste they had contracted for many years earlier, and they 
collected some nearly $12 billion from the ratepayers of this country. 
They could not meet their commitments.
  Now, I indicated further that ``judging from the attention on this 
matter by the Secretary of Energy, I had assumed it was a top priority 
for the administration.'' But I indicated that the President, in recent 
letters the President sent to Senator Bryan and the Nevada Governor, 
Governor Miller, seemed to suggest otherwise.
  Further, my letter reads:

       While you acknowledge, Mr. President, there are national 
     security interests involved, your letter states that you 
     can't support any current legislation to fix the problem at 
     this time.

  I further stated in my letter to the President:

       If you cannot support current legislative proposals at this 
     time, members of my committee, the Energy and Natural 
     Resources Committee, would like to know how and when you plan 
     to offer an alternative proposal.

  Again, April 17, 1995, I further stated:

       You are no doubt aware that the environmental and security 
     implications of failing to reach a solution in the not-too-
     distant future are significant. With all due respect, Mr. 
     President, I and many members of my committee believe it is 
     time for you to become an active participant in efforts 
     to resolve this pressing challenge. We urge you to either 
     support the concepts in several current legislative 
     proposals, or to offer a plan of your own. We have already 
     held hearings on the spent fuel programs and continue to 
     work toward a solution. Your advice and involvement would 
     be greatly appreciated. 
  Copies went to Secretary O'Leary and Senator Bennett Johnston.
  So we put, if you will, the President of the United States on notice 
that if he did not like the proposal that we were working on, to come 
on up with some constructive suggestions on how to change it. He has 
that obligation, if he is opposed to what we are trying to address, to 
resolve the problem so that we can move on with our responsibility.
  Well, Mr. President, the disposition of that letter of April 7, 1995 
to the President was that 4 months passed and there was simply no 
answer from the President or the White House.
  Well, not being one to give up, the Senator from Alaska, on August 7, 
wrote another letter to the President. I will read it as follows:

                                                   August 7, 1995.
       Dear Mr. President: I last wrote you on the subject of 
     managing the Nation's spent nuclear fuel on April 7, 1995. In 
     my prior letter, I made reference to the fact that you, in a 
     letter to Senator Bryan, stated that you could not support 
     any spent fuel management legislation currently before the 
     Congress at this time. Your position raised a number of 
     questions. One, if you cannot support any pending 
     legislation, what can you support, Mr. President? If you will 
     not support legislation now, when might you support it?

  I wonder if it is after the election. That is an insert, I might add, 
and not from the letter:

       If all the comprehensive spent fuel management legislation 
     before Congress is unacceptable, will you provide us with 
     draft legislation that is acceptable? I further refer to my 
     letter of April 7. I challenge the administration to become 
     an active participant in either supporting the concepts in 
     pending legislation or by offering a comprehensive plan of 
     its own.

  I further explain in my letter to the President:

       Unfortunately this has not yet occurred. In fact, neither 
     you nor your office has ever responded to my letter.

  That was my letter of April 7:

       Are we to conclude that you will simply continue to remain 
     critical of all the pending proposals without offering 
     constructive, comprehensive alternatives? Recently, a House 
     subcommittee marked up its legislation to address the spent 
     fuel management problems. Floor action may yet occur in the 
     House this year. Meanwhile, our committee continues its 
     deliberations with industry, consumer groups, regulatory 
     authorities, and others, with a view toward achieving a broad 
     consensus. Even the Appropriations Committee is anxious to 
     see some progress and is inserting provisions in their bills 
     to promote action. Everyone seems to be working on the issue 
     except your administration. Further, I believe that the spent 
     fuel management problem is one that best can be solved by 
     working in a bipartisan, collaborative manner.
       Unfortunately, your administration has failed to provide 
     meaningful guidance at this important stage in our 
     deliberations. I would again urge you to submit comprehensive 
     legislation to address this important problem, or voice your 
     support for concepts embodied in legislation currently before 
     us. The courtesy of a reply would be appreciated.

  I enclosed the letter of April 7 in my letter, which I read, of 
August 7.
  Well, this time, we did get an answer, and the answer came back on 
August 18. That letter was signed by Alice Rivlin, Director, Executive 
Office of Management and Budget.
  It is rather interesting to reflect on this letter which I ask 
unanimous consent to be printed in the Record along with my letter of 
August 7.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                         U.S. Senate, Committee on


                                 Energy and Natural Resources,

                                   Washington, DC, August 7, 1995.
     Hon. William J. Clinton,
     President of the United States, The White House, Washington, 
         DC.
       Dear Mr. President: I last wrote to you on the subject of 
     managing the nation's spent civilian nuclear fuel on April 7, 
     1995.
       In my prior letter, I made reference to the fact that you, 
     in a letter to Senator Bryan, stated that you could not 
     support any spent fuel management legislation currently 
     before Congress at this time. Your position raised a number 
     of questions:

[[Page S7863]]

       If you cannot support any pending legislation, what can you 
     support?
       If you will not support legislation now, when might you 
     support it?
       If all the comprehensive spent fuel management legislation 
     before Congress is unacceptable, will you provide us with 
     draft legislation that is acceptable?
       In my April 7 letter, I challenged the administration to 
     become an active participant by either supporting the 
     concepts in pending legislation or by offering a 
     comprehensive plan of its own. Unfortunately, this has not 
     yet occurred. In fact, neither you nor your office has even 
     responded to my letter. Are we to conclude that you will 
     simply continue to remain critical of all the pending 
     proposals without offering constructive, comprehensive 
     alternatives?
       Recently, a House Subcommittee marked up its legislation to 
     address the spent fuel management problem. Floor action may 
     yet occur in the House this year. Meanwhile, our Committee 
     continues its deliberations with industry, consumer groups, 
     regulatory authorities and others with a view toward 
     achieving a broad consensus. Even the Appropriations 
     Committees, anxious to see some progress, are inserting 
     provisions in their bills to promote action. Everyone seems 
     to be working on this issue, Mr. President--except your 
     administration.
       I believe the spent fuel management problem is one that can 
     best be solved by working in a bipartisan, collaborative 
     manner. Unfortunately, the opportunity for the administration 
     to provide meaningful guidance at this important stage in 
     our deliberations is quickly being lost.
       I again urge you to submit comprehensive legislation to 
     address this important problem, or voice your support for 
     concepts embodies in legislation currently before us. This 
     courtesy of a reply would also be appreciated.
           Sincerely,
                                               Frank H. Murkowski,
     Chairman.
                                                                    ____

         Executive Office of the President, Office of Management 
           and Budget,
                                  Washington, DC, August 18, 1995.
     Hon. Frank H. Murkowski,
     Chairman, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. 
         Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: Thank you for your letter to the 
     President concerning the civilian nuclear waste program. As 
     you know, the Administration is devoting its full efforts to 
     complete the site characterization and other technical 
     aspects of the permanent repository on the earliest possible 
     schedule.
       With respect to proposals that would crease an interim 
     storage facility at Yucca Mountain, the Administration is 
     conducting an internal policy review, as we do with all 
     legislation in Congress. The Office of Management and Budget 
     is leading this review, in its usual role. The Department of 
     Energy is centrally involved, since it manages the nuclear 
     waste program. Other agencies and offices are participating 
     as appropriate to their programs.
       We expect to be in a position to communicate an 
     Administration policy recommendation to you by the time you 
     return from the Labor Day recess. I apologize for the delay 
     in responding to your letters, and look forward to providing 
     more information very soon.
           Sincerely,
                                                  Alice M. Rivlin,
                                                         Director.

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, this letter does not address the 
question of what the administration proposes as an answer if it does 
not like what we come up with. It simply acknowledges the two letters 
of the President. It indicates that:

       With respect to the proposal that we create an interim 
     storage at Yucca Mountain, the Administration is conducting 
     an internal policy review, as we do with all legislation 
     pending in Congress. The Office of Management and Budget is 
     leading this review, in its usual role. The Department of 
     Energy is centrally involved, since it manages the nuclear 
     waste program.

  All of which are self evident.
  The last paragraph addresses the issue in the following way:

       We expect to be in a position to communicate an 
     Administration policy recommendation to you by the time you 
     return from the Labor Day recess.

  And Ms. Rivlin apologizes for the delay.
  So here we started out in April, the first letter; August, the second 
letter to the President; third, we get a letter saying they are going 
to take it up after the recess. Time went by. Fall came. The leaves 
fell. Frost came. Snow came. Snow came down. Christmas passed. Then New 
Year's. One can only assume that the administration did not want to 
engage in this issue or try to solve the problem. So being somewhat 
consistent, on January 10, I decided I could wait no longer. So on 
January 10, I wrote another letter. Over the past 9 months--one can 
conceive a child in that timeframe.

       Dear Mr. President: I have written two letters to you 
     requesting that the Administration offer a comprehensive plan 
     that would allow the Federal Government to meet its 
     commitment.
       What we have now is a program that has spent twelve years 
     and $4.2 billion of taxpayer dollars looking for a site for a 
     permanent high-level nuclear waste repository. By 1998, the 
     deadline for acceptance of waste by the Department of Energy 
     . . . is at hand.

  The Yucca Mountain site is not determined at this time to be 
licensable. We have 23 commercial power reactors that will run out of 
room in their spent storage pool. By 2010, the DOE's rather optimistic 
target date for opening a permanent repository, an additional 55 
reactors will be out of space. It is estimated that continued on-site 
storage through 2010 would cost our Nation an additional $5 billion.
  I referred to my letters of April 7 and August 7 citing that I had 
received assurances from Alice Rivlin and an indication that the 
administration would have a response after Labor Day.
  I further advised the President that I have not had that response as 
promised.
  On December 14, Hazel O'Leary testified before the committee and 
indicated that she would oppose any legislation that would authorize 
the construction of interim storage at the Nevada test site.
  I further indicated to the President that the option of status quo 
was not acceptable. I further indicated that, if the administration 
continued to reject congressional proposals, I would ask the President 
to offer an alternative plan that would allow the Government to fulfill 
its commitment to the electorate, the taxpayers of this country.
  To hear some say--the minority leader--that we are somehow being 
rushed into this, that this is action taken on the spur of the moment, 
or the comments from the Washington Post in their editorial that there 
is no need to rush into this, this has been cooking with the 
administration since the administration came into office. They simply 
do not want to address the issue. They do not want to have to make a 
decision on their watch. They do not want to have to make a decision 
before the election. Obviously, our friends from Nevada, of the other 
party, may feel this is certain. This is a legitimate environmental 
issue of the highest nature. It is an obligation of this body to 
address it.
  We have expended 15 years in the process. We are up against some 
realities that I think bear further examination. One is that there are 
some members of the environmental community who are opposed to the 
continuation of nuclear power generation in this country, even though 
nearly a third of our power generation is dependent on it. The States 
license the storage facilities. As the storage facilities begin to fill 
up, these companies are desperate as to what to do with the spent fuel. 
The fact that they have been collecting from the ratepayers over $12 
billion that has been given to the Federal Government to take that fuel 
in 1998 is basically incidental to these groups that oppose nuclear 
power generation. They see this as a way to permanently shut down the 
nuclear industry in the United States.
  I do not think that is the answer, Mr. President. The answer is again 
to recognize that we have this problem today, and we have the option of 
storing, until a permanent repository is established, this waste in 
Nevada in a temporary repository.
  I want to conclude my reference with regard to this correspondence 
because I wrote my letter in January 1996. Then in March 1996, nearly 1 
year after the first letter of August 1995, or April 1995, I finally 
got a reply. The reply said basically the status quo was fine and that 
the administration opposed everything.
  I ask unanimous consent that a letter be printed in the Record dated 
March 1 from Alice Rivlin.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

         Executive Office of the President, Office of Management 
           and Budget,
                                    Washington, DC, March 1, 1996.
     Hon. Frank H. Murkowski,
     Chairman, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. 
         Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: Thank you for your letter of January 
     10th to the President outlining your continuing concern about 
     the direction of the civilian nuclear waste program. He has 
     asked that I respond on his behalf.

[[Page S7864]]

       The Administration appreciates and shares the concern that 
     you and many of your colleagues have expressed about the time 
     and resources that the government has invested in the search 
     for a suitable site for a geologic repository for spent 
     nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste. We also appreciate 
     the concerns that you and others have raised about the costs 
     of extended storage of spent nuclear fuel at reactor sites 
     from the nation's commercial nuclear power plants and about 
     the need for centralized interim storage pending completion 
     of a permanent facility. We share your desire to resolve this 
     complex and important issue. At the same time, as the 
     President has stated, we are committed to doing so in a way 
     that is objective and fair to both the citizens of Nevada and 
     the rest of the Nation.
       In response to your concerns, both my October 13th letter 
     to leaders of the Conference Committee on the FY 1996 Energy 
     and Water Appropriations bill and Secretary O'Leary's 
     testimony before your committee on December 14th provide the 
     Administration's views on how the issue should be approached. 
     We believe that the government's long-standing commitment to 
     geologic disposal should remain the basic goal of Federal 
     high-level radioactive waste management policy. Significantly 
     deferring or abandoning that commitment would jeopardize the 
     entire waste management program, with potentially adverse 
     consequences for ratepayers, utilities, the national energy 
     outlook and defense policy, the cleanup of the Department of 
     Energy's nuclear weapons complex, and international 
     nonproliferation and environmental policy. The prospects for 
     timely development of any necessary interim storage 
     facilities could be particularly damaged by any potential 
     weakening of our long-term strategy for disposal. As Idaho 
     Governor Batt indicated in your December 14th hearing, the 
     willingness of any State to accept interim storage is likely 
     to be contingent upon confidence in the availability of a 
     permanent facility. Furthermore, the technical requirements 
     of any interim facility also will be significantly affected 
     by the likelihood that the Yucca Mountain site ultimately 
     will be available as the permanent repository site.
       Accordingly, we strongly oppose designating an interim 
     storage facility at a specific site at this time. We believe 
     that any potential siting decision concerning such a facility 
     ultimately should be based on objective criteria and informed 
     by the likelihood of success of the Yucca Mountain repository 
     site. Thus, we feel it is necessary to complete the 
     scientific and other assessments that are now underway to 
     determine the viability of the site at Yucca Mountain, 
     Nevada, to serve as the permanent repository before 
     considering specific options for an interim storage facility. 
     Our current schedule anticipates completing that viability 
     assessment in the 1998-1999 time frame. We hope that the 
     Congress will provide resources sufficient to keep us on that 
     schedule. Any effort expended on an interim facility in the 
     meantime should only focus on non-site-specific design and 
     engineering.
       The accelerated progress that the nuclear waste program has 
     made recently results from planning and management 
     innovations begun by this Administration. As Secretary 
     O'Leary made clear in her testimony, we agree with you that 
     the status quo is not an option. Consistent with the 
     principles outlined here, the Department is continuing to 
     make strategic adjustments to maintain and improve 
     performance within anticipated resource levels.
       Thank you for your continuing commitment to a sound nuclear 
     waste policy. We look forward to continuing to work with you 
     toward that end in the months and years to come.
           Sincerely,
                                                  Alice M. Rivlin,
                                                         Director.

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, the letter is rather significant 
because, while it acknowledges the consequences for the ratepayers and 
the legitimacy of cleanup of our nuclear waste complex, it does not 
address anything positive relative to responding to the dilemma 
associated with finding a site. They strongly oppose designating an 
interim storage facility at a specific site at this time. It has taken 
them a year to say that. ``We strongly oppose designating an interim 
storage facility at a specific site at this time.''
  They further believe any potential siting decision concerning such a 
facility should be based on objective criteria, whatever that means, 
and informed by the likelihood of success at the Yucca Mountain 
repository. In other words, they want Yucca Mountain licensed and 
established before you move this material. There is no indication that 
is going to be done before the year 2010, or thereabouts. What are we 
going to do in the meantime--shut down our power sources? Clearly that 
is not a responsible option.
  So, again, Mr. President, the history on this issue shows an 
administration that simply has no responsibility as far as playing a 
role in the ultimate disposition of how we work with this waste 
situation. There has been nothing about working with us to solve the 
problem, nothing about what they would propose on the legislation to 
solve the problem; simply do nothing; status quo.
  Mr. President, that is irresponsible. I suppose we could have given 
up at this point but we did not. Because I do not think any of us like 
a government that breaks its promises, and we have broken our promise 
to the ratepayers and to the industry because we are not prepared to 
take it to 1998. I do not agree the ratepayers need to spend an extra 
$5 to $7 billion creating 80 nuclear waste dumps all around the country 
when one will do. One will do in an area where we have set off nuclear 
devices for some 50 years. So we set off to address the problem in S. 
1271, that the administration says it did not like. We incorporated in 
our approach suggestions by my good friend, Senator Johnston, the 
ranking member of the Energy Committee, to await the interim repository 
until the viability of the permanent repository was established. We 
compromised. So this morning we were greeted by the letter from Leon 
Panetta saying the President would now veto the bill. The ridiculous 
part is there is no indication they have read the new bill, but they 
already decided to veto it.

  I have been begging you, Mr. President, President Clinton, to get 
into the game for more than a year. Thus far you simply decided to 
punt. Mr. President, do not punt yet. There is still time for you to 
get into the game. You have a responsibility, as we do. We are in the 
fourth quarter now. Time is running out, but there is still time for 
you to help us solve the problem.
  And, Mr. President, this is not an issue about the nuclear lobby. We 
keep hearing from the Washington Post, the Nevada Senators, the 
minority leader, that the bill is for the nuclear power lobby. It is 
not. I was going to introduce letters of support from the Governors and 
attorney generals to the President and to Members of Congress from 
Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, Vermont, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
Pennsylvania, Arizona, Massachusetts, Virginia, Wisconsin, Rhode 
Island, Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, 
Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Ohio and Oregon. These are 23 States. 
They want this problem solved at this time.
  Mr. President, these letters are available to Senators through my 
office. I would ask unanimous consent to print these in the Record, but 
they are too voluminous.
  There are numerous misstatements that have been made on the floor 
that I must address. I am going to take a little time now to do that, 
but it will not be too much time. I will be very short because I know 
there are other Senators who want to speak.
  What is the truth about S. 1936? The misstatement has been made that 
S. 1936 would effectively end the work on a permanent repository and 
abandon the health, safety, and environmental protection our citizens 
deserve. This came from page S7637 of the Congressional Record of July 
10.
  The fact is, section 205 of S. 1936 directs that work continue on a 
permanent repository in Yucca Mountain. Fees being paid by American 
electric customers are more than adequate to pay for both the interim 
facility and the permanent repository program. Indeed, to help ensure a 
permanent repository is built and that the interim facility does not 
become a de facto permanent facility, as the Nevada Senators have 
contended, reasonable and achievable overall system performance 
standards are specified in the legislation.
  A statement that the transport cask could only survive a 30-mile-per-
hour crash was made by one of the Nevada Senators this morning. It is 
interesting, because there has been a lot of engineering, a lot of 
money spent on these casks. The fact is, these casks have been tested 
in 83-mile-per-hour crashes. They have been tested in conditions that 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Sandia National Laboratory 
say encompass the range of accidents that can happen in the real world. 
At one time they were attempting to design casks that would withstand 
free fall from 30,000 feet, the theory being they may move some of this 
nuclear waste by special long-range 747 aircraft.

  There have been horror stories about train wrecks. Let us set the 
record

[[Page S7865]]

straight. We have been transporting nuclear waste around the world for 
40 years. There have been 20,000 nuclear waste transportation movements 
around the world. There have been a few accidents, but there has never 
been a cask failure or radioactive release, because the casks have 
performed as designed. The transportation is safe and it will continue 
to be safe.
  How many Members of this body are aware of the nuclear waste that 
moves through their State, whether it be Colorado, whether it be 
Indiana? It moves to Savannah, it moves to Idaho, it moves to the State 
of Washington, and it moves responsibly because safeguards are 
initiated. And this waste will move safely because safeguards will be 
enacted.
  There are other Members I see who want recognition, so I am going to 
sum up by saying we must act now. One waste site, not 80 waste sites. 
Let us save the consumers of this country $5 to $7 billion that would 
otherwise be expended by delay. It can be safe for Nevada. It can be 
safe for the Nation. I grant it is a political problem. I grant nobody 
wants it. But I challenge that somebody has to take it, so let us put 
it where we have had nuclear testing for over 50 years, in the deserts 
of Nevada. It is not a technical, scientific problem. We have an 
opportunity and we have an obligation to get the job done. No more 
stalling. No more excuses. Let us get the administration on board. Let 
us do it. If we have to override a President's veto, let us do it. 
Because this is the environmental issue of this Congress and to defeat 
it is to defeat what is right for the environment. And that makes it 
wrong. One waste site, not 80.
  I reserve the remainder of my time and ask the Chair how much time is 
remaining on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). The Senator from Nevada [Mr. 
Reid], has 131 minutes. The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Bryan], 180 
minutes. The Senator from Louisiana [Mr. Johnston], has 22 minutes. The 
Senator from Alaska has 45 minutes.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Nuclear waste legislation needs to do four things.
  First, it needs to provide for the storage of nuclear waste between 
1998, when a quarter of the Nation's nuclear powerplants will have run 
out of storage space, and the date, 14 or more years distant, when the 
permanent repository will open and begin accepting the utilities' 
waste.
  Second, it needs to set the existing repository program on a sounder 
footing by endorsing the Department of Energy's plan for completing 
scientific studies at the site and setting forth the licensing 
standards by which the repository will be judged.
  Third, it needs to fill the gap in transportation planning by 
selecting an appropriate route to ship nuclear waste between existing 
railroads and Yucca Mountain.
  Fourth, it needs to ensure that the program is adequately funded.
  The bill before us meets all four of these tests. While it differs 
from the bill I introduced at the beginning of the Congress and the 
bill reported by the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 
March, the differences are ones I can live with.
  Indeed, the pending bill makes a number of useful improvements over 
the committee-reported bill.
  On interim storage, the new bill goes a long way to meet the 
administration's concerns about siting the interim storage facility at 
Yucca Mountain before the site has been found suitable for the 
repository. The bill bars construction of the interim storage facility 
until the tests can be completed and sets up a mechanism for the 
President to pick a different site if Yucca Mountain proves unsuitable. 
It also reduces the capacity of the interim storage facility to 
alleviate concerns that the interim facility might otherwise supplant 
the repository.
  On the repository, the new bill gives the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission the authority to impose tougher standards than the ones set 
forth in the bill. While I believe that the 100-millirem standard in 
the committee-reported bill was scientifically sound, the new bill 
gives the technical experts at the NRC the ability to set a different 
standard if a tougher standard is needed to protect the public health 
and safety.
  The new bill drops a number of the more controversial provisions of 
the committee-reported bill, including a provision that would have 
permitted utilities to ship their spent fuel to Europe for reprocessing 
and another that would have preempted a wide range of State and Federal 
environmental laws.
  In addition, the new bill adds a number of helpful provisions 
designed to give financial and technical assistance to local 
governments and Indian tribes affected by the program and to ensure 
that nuclear waste is transported safely.
  The new bill adds a number of other provisions that concern me.
  For one, I cannot understand why the bill requires the Secretary of 
Transportation to issue worker-training standards for storage and 
disposal of nuclear waste. I do not quarrel with giving the Secretary 
of Transportation the power to set worker-training standards for the 
transportation of nuclear waste, but the Department of Transportation 
has no expertise in the storage and disposal of such waste. Storage and 
disposal are already regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
which does have the expertise. This provision creates an unnecessary 
and duplicative bureaucratic requirement and offers more opportunities 
to delay the nuclear waste program and make it more costly.
  Second, I am concerned with the new funding mechanism in section 401 
of the bill. I would have retained the existing one mill per kilowatt-
hour fee on nuclear electricity and have taken steps to free the funds 
collected from electric ratepayers for this program from existing 
budget caps. Instead, S. 1936 takes the course mapped out in the House 
bill. It ties the amount of fees collected each year after October 1, 
2002 to the amount appropriated to the program in that year. While this 
approach may offer relief after 2002, it does nothing to address the 
current funding problem and it will work against the use of the funds 
already collected but not yet spent on the program.
  Third, I am troubled by the new water rights provision in section 
501. The purpose and effect of this provision are not immediately 
clear, but I fear that it may give the State of Nevada power it does 
not now possess to obstruct nuclear waste storage and disposal 
activities at Yucca Mountain.
  Fourth, I am opposed to title VII of the bill, which exempts the 
nuclear waste program from the civil service laws. Since roughly 90 
percent of the people working on the program are already employed by 
private-sector contractors, I am not convinced that depriving the 
remaining 10 percent of their civil service protections will 
dramatically improve the program's performance. I do fear that this 
provision sets a bad precedent and may prove counterproductive.
  Finally, I am concerned by the bill's failure to authorize a rail 
link between existing railroads and the Yucca Mountain site. I 
understand the reasons for this. A rail link could cost a billion 
dollars or more. But the benefits of keeping nuclear waste canisters 
off the public highways may justify the cost. This issue deserves 
further consideration.
  These concerns do not detract from my overall support for the bill. 
In the interest of passing a bill this year, I do not intend to offer 
amendments on these issues at this time. I would hope that 
consideration can be given to fixing these problems in conference.
  Mr. KEMPTHORNE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Craig). The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. KEMPTHORNE. Mr. President, about an hour ago a reporter came up 
to me outside of these Chambers and said: In light of the fact that we 
have yet to act on 13 appropriations bills, and the fact there is very 
little time remaining in this Congress, is it appropriate that you are 
debating this issue of nuclear waste and where it should be located and 
disposed of?
  I responded to the reporter: In light of all that you have just said, 
it is long overdue. It is decades in coming, that we finally have this 
time on the Senate floor where we can discuss what do we do with this 
nuclear waste. This is not an issue as to whether or not you are 
pronuclear or antinuclear, because, if you turned off every nuclear 
powerplant today, we have hundreds of metric tons of nuclear waste 
sitting

[[Page S7866]]

throughout the United States and something has to be done with that 
nuclear waste.
  It has been stated by a number of the speakers here today that we 
have 34 States that currently have commercial nuclear waste that is 
kept in those States. Let me also point out that, according to 
information provided by the Nuclear Energy Institute, there are 32 
States that rely on nuclear energy for part of their electrical power. 
In addition, a number of reports indicate that 23 nuclear utilities 
will begin to run out of storage space for spent nuclear fuel in 2 
years--in 2 years; and in 12 years another 55 reactors are expected to 
run out of storage space.
  As utilities exhaust available storage space for fuel, electrical 
brownouts will occur as States and local utilities begin to see the 
Federal Government's inability to address a national problem, a problem 
that has been here, again, for decades.
  Mr. President, we talk about this. We use statistics and numbers. But 
let me just mention some of the States that rely upon nuclear power for 
their energy, and what percent of their energy is derived from that 
nuclear source: Vermont, 81.5 percent; Connecticut, 74.1 percent; 
Maine, 73.6; New Jersey, 69.8 percent of its energy is derived from 
nuclear sources; South Carolina, 60.2 percent; Illinois, 52.7 percent, 
well over half; New Hampshire, 52.2 percent; Virginia, 48.3 percent; 
Pennsylvania, 39.8 percent; Mississippi, 36.7 percent; North Carolina, 
35.4 percent; Arkansas, 35.2 percent; Arizona, 32.5 percent; Minnesota, 
29.9 percent; Georgia, 29.3 percent of its energy comes from nuclear; 
Nebraska, 28.9 percent; New York, 28.2 percent; California, 26.6 
percent; Maryland, 25.6 percent; Wisconsin, 23.3 percent. The list goes 
on. I ask unanimous consent the entire list be printed in the Record.

  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

           STATE ELECTRICAL GENERATION BY NUCLEAR ENERGY, 1994          
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                    Nuclear   Nuclear as
                                                  generation  percent of
      Ranking by nuclear percent and State         (million      State  
                                                     kWh)      total kWh
------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1. Vermont....................................       4,316        81.5
  2. Connecticut................................      20,260        74.1
  3. Maine......................................       6,632        73.6
  4. New Jersey.................................      22,129        69.8
  5. South Carolina.............................      44,475        60.2
  6. Illinois...................................      72,654        52.7
  7. New Hampshire..............................       6,204        52.2
  8. Virginia...................................      25,429        48.3
  9. Pennsylvania...............................      67,207        39.8
 10. Mississippi................................       9,615        36.7
 11. North Carolina.............................      32,346        35.4
 12. Arkansas...................................      13,924        35.2
 13. Arizona....................................      23,171        32.5
 14. Minnesota..................................      12,224        29.9
 15. Georgia....................................      28,927        29.3
 16. Nebraska...................................       6,345        28.9
 17. New York...................................      29,225        28.2
 18. California.................................      33,752        26.6
 19. Maryland...................................      11,222        25.6
 20. Wisconsin..................................      11,516        23.3
 21. Kansas.....................................       8,529        22.9
 22. Alabama....................................      20,480        21.5
 23. Louisiana..................................      12,357        20.7
 24. Florida....................................      26,682        18.8
 25. Michigan...................................      14,144        16.9
 26. Missouri...................................      10,006        16.3
 27. Tennessee..................................      11,932        15.9
 28. Massachusetts..............................       3,895        14.2
 29. Iowa.......................................       4,107        12.8
 30. Texas......................................      28,067        11.0
 31. Ohio.......................................      10,952         8.5
 32. Washington.................................       6,740        8.2 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: DOE/EIA, Electric Power Monthly, March 1995.                    

  Mr. KEMPTHORNE. Mr. President, this demonstrates the difficulty that 
the States in the United States of America are facing. You have a 
beautiful State, the green State of Vermont; over 80 percent of its 
energy comes from nuclear. I think the folks in Vermont want to have a 
solution. I do not think Vermont wants to face brownouts from a power 
supply. I do not think the people of Connecticut want to face 
brownouts; Connecticut, which has 74.1 percent of its nuclear energy or 
energy coming from nuclear.
  You have the Governors of these States--in the State of Florida, 
Lawton Chiles sent a letter to Senators Graham and Mack, and he said:

       Florida ratepayers have paid more than $397.4 million into 
     the Nuclear Waste Fund for use by the Department of Energy in 
     managing the spent fuel from Florida's five nuclear 
     powerplants. In spite of these continuing payments from the 
     citizens of Florida, the DOE is still unable to meet its 
     statutory obligations. In fact, Florida, along with numerous 
     other State utility commissions and attorneys general, have 
     sued the DOE over its failure to meet its legal obligations.

  Continuing:

       A centralized interim storage facility is the only way the 
     DOE will be able to meet its responsibility to begin 
     accepting spent fuel on time, and prevent the creation of 
     three interim storage sites in Florida.

  That is from Gov. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat. This is not a partisan 
issue by any stretch of the imagination. In Vermont, Gov. Howard Dean 
states:

       I am urging you to support changes in the Nuclear Waste 
     Policy Act that would ensure that the Federal Government 
     meets its responsibility to electricity consumers to begin 
     accepting spent fuel from commercial powerplants in 1998. 
     Legislation that would address this situation * * * is now 
     pending in the U.S. Senate.

  That takes a look at the commercial aspect of this, the fact we have 
so many States that derive their power from nuclear powerplants, the 
fact that you have the spent fuel from those reactors that is beginning 
to pile up throughout the United States.
  But there are other States that we categorize as ``other nuclear 
material.'' What would be an example of that? A Navy shipyard. Take, 
again, the State of Connecticut, where they proudly build Navy's 
nuclear-powered submarines, truly the finest submarines built by any 
country in the world, the 688 nuclear class attack submarine. They will 
be building the Seawolf. But you know, Mr. President, this is a 
situation where they build nuclear submarines in Connecticut on behalf 
of the Government and on behalf of the U.S. Navy, but after some years 
at sea, they then have to take the spent nuclear fuel rods from those 
nuclear reactors, and they have to transport those to the State of 
Idaho.
  (Mr. MURKOWSKI assumed the chair.)
  Mr. KEMPTHORNE. Mr. President, so you see, Idaho and Connecticut are 
really tied together in this whole thing. That is why I have had good 
discussions with the Senators from Connecticut. I know they have to 
look out for their people who derive such good economic benefit from 
building these naval nuclear attack submarines in their State, and I 
know that they realize that with that goes the responsibility of 
somebody has to come up with the technique to deal with these spent 
nuclear fuel rods. The last thing we want to do is to say, ``Don't 
build any more of these nuclear submarines.'' I don't think that is 
what we want to say. I am sure the folks in Connecticut do not want to 
hear that.

  We can see the dilemma for so many States. A State like Connecticut 
that is building the submarines but also derives 74.1 percent of their 
power from nuclear powerplants. This is not just one State that is 
saying, ``Time out, we have a problem,'' it is the States of this Union 
that are saying, ``Own up to the responsibility, Government of this 
land.''
  It is time for us to come up with a solution. It is time for us to 
realize, again, that this is not a pronuclear-antinuclear issue. Not at 
all. It is an issue about whether or not we are going to be 
responsible.
  I have read some of these other letters, but there is one other 
letter I would like to read from a citizen from the State of Idaho who 
lives in Sun Valley, ID, Bernice Paige. This was written to the 
Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary:

       This letter is to express my views on Federal 
     responsibility to store spent nuclear fuel. It is incredible 
     that the Federal Government has not only dragged its feet for 
     the past 12 years and failed to get a repository constructed, 
     but now they even are considering breaking their agreement 
     with the nuclear power utilities. I urge you to proceed with 
     construction of storage and disposal facilities to take spent 
     fuel from nuclear utilities as soon as possible.

  She goes on to say, and I conclude with this:

       I have been retired for 13 years and spend many hours as a 
     volunteer for our Nation's trails and other environmental 
     issues. Nevertheless, I keep abreast of nuclear issues 
     worldwide. We must not fail to provide the needed Federal 
     fuel storage for these utilities that provide 20 percent of 
     our electricity.

  So, Mr. President, I think that sums up how many of us feel about 
this. It is a tough issue. We now have a piece of legislation that 
directs the Department of Energy to do the job it was directed to do 
and to build a storage facility for spent fuel. If the Senate rejects 
this option, we can already see the consequences: forty-one States will 
continue to serve as long-term storage

[[Page S7867]]

sites for spent nuclear fuel, and existing storage facilities for spent 
nuclear fuel will be used far beyond their design level.
  In closing, I commend my colleague from the State of Idaho, Senator 
Craig. I also commend the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources 
Committee, the Presiding Officer, Senator Murkowski, the Senator from 
Louisiana, Senator Bennett Johnston, for their leadership for months 
and months, bringing us to this point, so, yes, we are finally dealing 
with this issue, as we should, as a responsible body, and to say to my 
friends from Nevada, I understand your concerns, but I think we are all 
in this together. We have to find a solution.
  So, again, that is what this legislation is about. Mr. President, I 
yield the floor.
  Mr. BRYAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. BRYAN. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I want to begin this afternoon by trying to give a 
graphic example of what it is that we fear if we do not have the 
adequate safeguards and protections, which, in my view, and in the view 
of the administration and many of my colleagues, are simply not present 
in the legislation before us, S. 1936.
  We frequently speak of nuclear waste in the abstract, as if it is 
something that is esoteric and scientific, and, indeed, the very 
description of what constitutes nuclear waste is a bit convoluted.
  So I want to describe the situation that occurred in the State of the 
distinguished Senator from Idaho to give you an idea just how lethal 
and deadly this stuff is. We are not talking now just about something 
that is kind of distasteful, kind of unpleasant, a little bit risky, 
something that we do not want any mishap to occur because it would be 
terribly inconvenient or expensive to clean it up. We are talking about 
something that is life threatening, something that lasts for tens of 
thousands of years--tens of thousands of years.
  A very tragic accident occurred in Idaho Falls in January of 1961. 
There were three young servicemen who were working on a reactor. Nobody 
contemplated that there would be a serious problem. They were adjusting 
some control rods. All of a sudden, the reactor went critical. The 
alarms were set off. All kinds of security measures were initiated. The 
emergency response team, such as they were, responded. The search began 
for the three men who had been working with the reactor. Wearing 
protective clothing, they entered the facility. What they found was a 
horrifying situation. I will just talk about one of the three because I 
think it makes the point.
  One of the men who was missing was a gentleman by the name of 
McKinley. Upon looking into the building, they found that he was pinned 
to the ceiling by a control rod. He was dead. His body was highly 
contaminated with nuclear waste. The others were found saturated with 
highly contaminated water from the reactor. Particles of fuel had 
penetrated their skin resulting in large open wounds due to the blast 
effect. In trying to extricate these men from their entombment, 
everything had to be treated as if it were high-level waste because it 
in fact was high-level waste. So all of the protective gear had to be 
employed.
  Even the solemn act of burying, paying last respects to a loved one 
involved some extraordinary procedures, because as a result of this 
explosion--an accident; nobody wanted it to happen. Nobody thought it 
would happen. It had never happened before. How many times have we 
heard that about an accident? ``It never happened before. We did not 
think it would occur. We never dreamed this could happen. How in the 
world could something like this have happened? How could we have 
foreseen the consequence?'' So this accident that occurred in early 
1961 clearly falls within that.
  But the body of the deceased had itself become high-level nuclear 
waste. In the cemetery in which he was emplaced, it was encased in 12 
inches of poured concrete and placed in 3 feet of packed Earth around 
it because the remains, decomposed, of that body would remain highly 
contaminated, dangerous, itself per se high-level nuclear waste, for 
all intents and purposes to the end of time, for thousands and 
thousands of years.
  So when we talk about the dangers of nuclear waste, we are talking 
about some of the most dangerous stuff in the world, in the history of 
civilization. When we are talking about strategies to provide for its 
storage and ultimate disposal, it seems to me that we ought to, when in 
doubt, err in favor of the most stringent standards. We are not just 
talking about this generation. Our time here, by nuclear waste 
deterioration standards, is a finite period of time. We are just kind 
of a microspeck on that graph of timespan that it takes for high-level 
nuclear waste to ultimately deteriorate over tens of thousands of 
years.
  So when we are asked, why do we fight? We fight because we believe 
that the health and safety, indeed the very lives, of the citizens of 
our State are at risk. No Member of this body, whatever his or her 
political affiliation may be, wherever they place themselves on the 
ideological scale, from liberal to conservative or in the political 
center, could live with himself or herself for 1 day if they did not do 
everything within their power to fight to protect the health and safety 
of the citizens of that State.

  My colleague from Nevada and I have undertaken this task because we 
believe it is a matter of, potentially, life or death for Nevadans 
under this ill-conceived scheme that is embraced in S. 1936.
  We have all seen our colleagues on both sides of the political aisle 
go to the so-called political mat to advance their State's interests. I 
think all of us, whether we agree or disagree with the proposition, 
have a good measure of respect for that. People say, ``By golly, 
Senator X or Senator Y is a great advocate,'' whether it is to secure 
an additional appropriation for a project that is deemed worthy in that 
State or whether it is to protect a State from part of these ongoing 
series of base closures we have experienced in the recent years. We all 
recognize the nature of that.
  But what we oppose here today is something that is totally different. 
This is not to secure an additional appropriation for our State for 
some project that is near and dear to Nevadans. This is not to prevent 
the closure of some base in our State. This is something, in my 
experience as a Member of the U.S. Senate, that is really without peer. 
As the lawyers would say, this is a case sui generis. I know of nothing 
like it--nothing like it--because what we simply try to do is to 
protect the health and safety of our citizens.
  We believe there is a far broader issue than just the concerns that 
we have as Nevadans about our own citizens. We believe that there is a 
major policy flaw in this legislation. I believe that, as Oliver 
Wendell Holmes once commented, ``A page of history is frequently more 
instructive than a volume of logic.'' So I think it is somewhat helpful 
to review a little bit of the history of this.
  I remember as a youngster, in the dawn of the nuclear age, tritium 
had been detonated, as a matter of fact, on this very day, 51 years 
ago, July 16, 1945. I remember that because of the fortuitous 
circumstance of my own birth. Today happens to be my birthday. So I 
always remember that.
  In the aftermath of the success of the Manhattan Project, and what it 
did to accelerate the end of World War II--and let me just say, 
parenthetically, not related to this debate, I believe that President 
Truman's decision was sound. I believe that we spared the lives of 
hundreds of thousands of Americans and brought that tragic war to a 
conclusion, as we properly should have.
  But in the aftermath of that, there was great excitement engendered 
about the future of nuclear power. What did it portend for America? I 
was a youngster in grade school. I acknowledged that if there be any 
academic strengths that I have, it would not lie in the field of 
science. But how well I recall, as a youngster each week we used to 
get, as schoolchildren in my time did, a Weekly Reader. It kind of 
talked about some of the things that were occurring that would 
transform and change the future. Because even as youngsters in grade 
school, we understood that we were going to be a part of that future.
  In the period after World War II, technology was exploding in so many

[[Page S7868]]

different areas. I recall distinctly that there was talk about nuclear 
power, too cheap to meter, that there would be some kind of a nuclear 
thing right outside of everyone's home and the traditional sources of 
energy would be relegated to the dustbin of history. I remember all of 
that as a kid.

  This mentality, this boosterism on behalf of the industry, 
understandable in its initial phase because nuclear energy was the 
product of a military necessity in World War II, the Manhattan Project, 
that mentality continued long after the end of World War II. In that 
desire to transform nuclear energy into its civilian purpose, no 
thought, Mr. President, no thought was given to the byproduct, the 
issue that confronts this Senate on this very day and has for many 
years--how do we dispose of the high-level nuclear waste, the 
byproduct, essentially, the spent fuel rods that come from nuclear 
reactors?
  It is interesting to note some of the things that were discussed over 
the years. From 1957 to 1982, various Federal agencies sought to build 
geologic repositories and the National Academy of Sciences was brought 
into it. Great debate raged as to whether it should be buried in 
subseabeds off the coastal shores of our country. At one point, the 
scientific community was quite excited after the birth of the space 
age, that somehow we could send this lethal, deadly stuff, put it in 
space. Somebody thought after a while, that may not be such a good idea 
because there could be an accident, and if there was an accident, this 
stuff would be spread all over creation. So wiser heads, cooler heads, 
more reasoned sober minds concluded that certainly is not a very good 
idea. So that was rejected.
  That kind of brings us into the 1960's, when all of a sudden, Kansas, 
a State that has brought to this Chamber our former distinguished 
majority leader, that Kansas would be an ideal site. The Atomic Energy 
Commission, which is the historical progenitor of the Department of 
Energy, has kind of gone through several iterations over the years, but 
we are talking about the folks who would be the ancestors to the 
present occupant of the energy policy arm of our Federal Government, 
the Atomic Energy Commission said the great place for this is Kansas. 
They went hell for leather. Kansas was where it was going to be. 
Indeed, everything was moving along. It was assumed that would be a 
great site. All of a sudden, somebody realized when they punched bore 
holes into the repository areas that were being proposed, they 
penetrated into the aquifer. I think most of us know that the largest 
aquifer in America, maybe the world for all I know, is the Ogalala 
Aquifer. It runs, literally, from north to south, from the upper Great 
Plains in the United States down into the panhandle. Lo and behold, the 
idea of contaminating an aquifer kind of got people's attention, 
particularly the good folks in Kansas. Their congressional delegation 
got energized and they responded and said, ``My God, this cannot be 
true. This cannot be possible.'' The AEC cannot be serious, having been 
now advised that we may contaminate an aquifer, they cannot be serious 
about that.
  Let me say, entrenched views, bureaucratic inertia, a little bit of 
the pride of authorship, a scientist saying to those of us who are 
laymen, ``We know what is best for you, let us make these decisions. We 
understand you all cannot begin to understand the complexity of this.'' 
The AEC, the Atomic Energy Commission, did not abandon its choice of 
Kansas notwithstanding this evidence.
  Now, if you are not from Nevada that may strike you as astonishing. 
Here is a public policy body, no question that there are distinguished, 
very capable scientists in it. One would assume they would act in a 
rational and responsible manner, that once presented with this kind of 
evidence it would be all over, and the response would be, ``Ladies and 
gentlemen, you are right. We ought not to proceed along these lines.'' 
That did not happen, Mr. President. Only when Kansas' congressional 
delegation got energized and inserted a clause into the reauthorization 
bill which blocked further study at the Lyons, KS, site did this come 
to an end.

  (Mr. THOMPSON assumed the chair.)
  Mr. BRYAN. That is the 1960's into the early 1970's.
  We heard a lot about the so-called WIPP site, waste isolation pilot 
project. Sometime in the early 1970's, the former Governor of New 
Mexico invited the Atomic Energy Commission to study sites in New 
Mexico for a siting, locating of transuranic nuclear waste. This was at 
a time when the processing was still considered viable. So the interest 
was in handling a destination for transuranic waste, and the belief was 
that a salt dome formation had geologic advantages and we should place 
the storage there.
  Over the years, that facility has been much troubled in terms of some 
of the scientific and technical concerns. My colleagues from that 
State, one a Republican and one a Democrat, have called to the 
attention of this body fairly recently their concerns about the levels 
of radiation, because it would be New Mexicans who would be affected. 
They did as any colleague worthy of his or her salt would do. They have 
made, I think, some very persuasive arguments. By and large, the body 
has yielded to their concerns about those standards. This is not an 
unfamiliar argument that one hears on the floor of the Senate.
  Well, 1982 comes around. I remember that year. I was involved in a 
hotly contested race for Governor of my State. There was a lot of 
discussion about the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. We looked at it 
in Nevada. I must say that we had some skepticism, skepticism born on 
the experience that we had from an earlier era when Nevada was chosen 
as the site of atmospheric nuclear tests. We embraced that with 
naivete, some enthusiasm, some sense of national pride because we were 
going to be on the cutting edge.
  This time, now, I am almost ready to get into high school and I am 
caught up in the community sense that, wow, this is a big deal. Some of 
the merchants in town actually changed the name of their business to 
``atomic'' this or ``atomic'' that. The distinguished occupant of the 
chair would be too young to recall these years, but we even had an 
atomic hairdo at that period of time that was somewhat of a fashion 
sensation of the moment. By the time I got into high school we got so 
enthusiastic that the cover of our high school annual Wildcat Echo had 
the nuclear mushroom cloud with all of the colors that are generated 
with that enormous heat and energy that is brought to focus. Nevadans 
were told, ``This is absolutely safe.'' We were encouraged to kind of 
get up in the morning and share the experience in silence. We learned--
even those of us not agile of mind when it comes to things that are 
mathematics or scientific--that speed of light travels much more 
rapidly than does the speed of sound, and that if we were careful and 
got up and watched this--as we did at 5 or 5:30 in the morning--we 
could see that flash in the sky, set our watch, and wait for the 
seismic impact. The seismic impact would hit. I mean, we had a small 
home, but those windows rattled and the doors shook. At that moment, we 
could calculate, because we knew what the speed of sound was, how far 
from our home ground zero was. That was kind of a little assignment we 
were given in school. We were told, ``Do not worry about a thing, this 
is great.''

  Let me just say that the evidence is quite to the contrary. What is 
particularly disturbing is that there were some people who knew what 
the evidence was. We now know that some of those scientists that 
reassured the Bryan family and our neighbors that it was safe were 
sending their own families out of State when these tests were 
occurring. We all know, as responsible Members of this body, that today 
the Senate and the other body appropriates money each year to provide 
for those poor, innocent victims who were downwind, who were told, 
``There is not a thing to worry about,'' who suffer from genetic 
defects, who suffer from cancer, whose health may be irretrievably 
lost. We provide for them.
  So that perspective, I think, is helpful, Mr. President, because 
having been told not to worry about anything, and decades later being a 
Member of this Chamber, where I, as well as every Member of this body, 
appropriate taxpayer dollars to compensate those victims downwind, we 
are particularly sensitive to the issue of health and safety because, 
as they say, we have been there. We have a little understanding.
  Let me get back a little bit to the 1982 act. I looked at the act and 
I said,

[[Page S7869]]

you know, this looks like the Congress has done a pretty good job. In 
1982, perhaps the rhetoric was a little lower and the institution was 
less polarized and Americans may have been less cynical, but, by and 
large, it was still pretty good sport in the early eighties to beat up 
on the Congress. But I said, you know, this looks pretty fair.
  The general parameters of the 1982 act have been, in my view, 
prostituted as a result of some of the legislative changes that have 
been made. The 1982 act said, look, we will search America and look for 
the best sites for a geological repository for high-level nuclear 
waste. We will look at different geological formations. There was great 
interest in granite, which tends to be located in the northeastern part 
of the States. We will look at the salt dome formations that were so 
attractive to those who were looking for the transuranic site. We will 
look at a formation out in Nevada called ``welded tuff.'' We will 
search the country and look for the best sites, and then we will study, 
or as the scientific community calls it, ``characterize'' each of those 
sites, and send that information to the President of the United States. 
Then the President will make his decision as to which one. It will be 
regionally balanced. No one part of the country will bear it all. 
Recognizing that States did not have the financial resources available 
to the Federal Government, there was an assurance that the States that 
were being considered would have funding from the Federal Government so 
they could engage their own technical people, independent and apart 
from the Department of Energy, as the agency had become known over the 
years, having changed from ERDA to the Department of Energy. That 
seemed pretty fair.

  That was signed into law, as I recall, by then President Reagan in 
January 1983. I took the oath of office as Governor in January 1983. 
Troubled clouds were on the horizon from the very beginning. We had 
been assured, as a State being considered, that there would be 
resources available to us to conduct that independent study. That was 
real important to us. Ours is a small State. It is very important to 
us. We made the request, as did other States who were being considered, 
and the Department of Energy stonewalled, refused, rejected, denied, 
ignored, cut us off.
  So the States that were being considered filed suit in district 
court. You do not have to be a Learned Hand to know that when the law 
specifically provides that there would be this kind of resources 
available and spelled out in statute that the States that were being 
considered had a pretty good case. We won in the district court. Then, 
again, we went back to the Department of Energy and we requested, we 
cajoled, and the answer was the same. We were ignored, denied, 
rejected, shut out.
  So then we went to the circuit court, the higher level in the Federal 
system. Again, the States that were being considered, all a part of 
this lawsuit, prevailed again, and still the Department of Energy 
objected, objected, objected. Finally, we came back to the Congress, as 
Governors, asking only for what was ours. We were not asking for any 
pork barrel projects. We were just asking for the money to be able to 
engage technical people so that we could be satisfied that indeed the 
science being conducted was untainted, fair, objective, legitimate, and 
that our people--if the day ever came that we might be selected as one 
of these three sites--would be protected.
  To the credit of the Congress, they directed the Department of Energy 
to release the money. Mr. President, that is not an auspicious 
beginning--not an auspicious beginning. I may have the sequence 
slightly out of order. But soon after that, the 1984 campaign began. Lo 
and behold the incumbent President began assuring the people in the 
southeastern part of the States that the salt dome formations, which 
would be looked at, were home free. You did not have to worry about 
that. That was nothing to be concerned with. So one began to say, wait 
1 minute, somebody is ``dealing seconds,'' as we say in Nevada. This is 
not a fair deal. The premise of the act was to look all over the 
country and make the decision based on science. Now, here in the 
context of a political campaign, a region is getting a pass, we are not 
going to look at you. I must say that that was not only unsettling, it 
was outrageous, absolutely outrageous.
  Then all of a sudden the word was that they were not going to look at 
anything in the Northeast. Congressman Markey, who then chaired a 
subcommittee, held an oversight hearing sometime. This predates my 
arrival in the Congress. Lo and behold, after examining documents 
prepared by the Department of Energy, the internal documents revealed 
that they were going to abandon any consideration of a site in the 
northeastern part of the country where granite is situated because the 
political pressure would be too great. So much for sites.
  Then former Secretary Harrington, in effect, unilaterally made the 
determination that no consideration would be given to a need for a 
second repository. So it was pretty clear that what we would look at is 
one area of the country to take it all, a repudiation of the basic 
premise of the act, which is that there should be regional equity, that 
there should be a shared responsibility, and that science and the 
geology of the region, not its political clout--in other words, any 
political operatives--should be the consideration. That went out the 
window.
  In 1987, the so-called Screw-Nevada bill was not having a real good 
relationship with the Department of Energy. Our plight was tooth and 
nail. They were not amenable to any of our suggestions. They had their 
own strategy for the study process. In 1987--the original bill was to 
look throughout the country; look at the different regions; look at the 
different geology and then come up with three sites to be sent to the 
President. After their studies characterized the present site, all of a 
sudden that goes out the window; not done in an up-or-down fashion. 
Nobody had an opportunity to really get into the merits in terms of 
offering amendments. This came as part of a reconciliation. So the 
Screw-Nevada bill, infamous in my own State, infamous by any standard 
in any State, would look only at Nevada.
  I frequently hear my colleagues who are great proponents of the 
nuclear industry--which is certainly their right--exalt their actions 
in the name of science. This has nothing to do with science. This has 
everything to do with blatant, naked political power directed against a 
small State with a very small delegation in the House. We happen to be 
the victims of that power play.
  When I say people were enraged in my State, that is a polite 
euphemism. So much for science. So much for science. It was that 
action, frankly, that spurred my own interest for the first time to 
consider becoming a Member of this body.
  It got worse. The nuclear utilities could see that Nevadans were not 
going to buy into anything that outrageous. No group of people in any 
State could accept that kind of treatment. It had nothing to do with 
science. It had nothing to do with merit. The risks were so great that, 
indeed, all of these nuclear eggs are in one basket. One kind of thinks 
of that old Rube Goldberg image where somehow we are going to adjust 
the rules because all of the expectation, all of the energy, is going 
to be devoted to making that site work.
  I will share with my colleagues one of the more outrageous things 
that the industry did. In September 1991, they commissioned a document 
called ``The Nevada Initiative.'' Mr. President, this is a lot like the 
battle plan for Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy in 1944. 
The language is cast in the format of establishing a beachhead and how 
we can persuade Nevadans to accept this. I mean, it is 
absolutely outrageous and offensive. It talked about the spending of 
millions of dollars by the nuclear power industry to persuade Nevadans 
just how safe this stuff was.

  I recall one of these ads quite well. We had a former media 
personality who kind of let us see, when he had his cup of coffee in 
the morning, him hold up a ceramic pellet out of the spent fuel rod as 
if you could replace your cream, or if you had something a little 
stronger in your coffee in the morning, that would be it as well. I 
mean, it was so absurd that it became a subject of great ridicule and 
humor by some of the disc jockeys on some of the Nevada

[[Page S7870]]

radio stations. They identify who enemies are; that is, those who are 
opposed. I am proud to say that my colleague and I made that list. We 
are in the hall of fame.
  They went on to talk about how they could separate and divide us, 
what their campaign objectives were; in the short term, create the 
necessary political and public climate to allow further site 
characterization to proceed within the next 3 years, to build a 
framework for political media and public awareness. Oh, my. It was 
quite a document. Key audiences were developed and natural allies; 
correspondingly, the key opposition. They talk about the need to 
assemble a media team. Of particular offense to women in my State was 
the suggestion that the primary target will be women age 25 to 49, a 
group at the highest statistical potential for affecting polls, if they 
could be informed, be assured, moved. Media campaign will also target 
the industry's most sympathetic base, age 35 to 54. They spent 
millions. The consultants got rich. The airwaves were bombarded.
  Mr. President, we are not fools. We know when they are trying to blow 
on by, pull the wool over our eyes. We understand that.
  So the view in Nevada is, as it has been for more than a decade, we 
do not trust them. We do not have that great sense of confidence.
  That is why I think it is so terribly important for us to have that 
background in mind as my colleague and I continue this discussion as we 
try to enlighten our colleagues.
  In that document, ``The Nevada Initiative,'' not much is said about 
safety; very little. That is the concern we have--safety. Everything is 
kind of done in the media; how we will hype this, spin this, get all of 
this together. I mean, it was a shocking performance, in my opinion.
  Let me just mention one other thing that occurred along the road. I 
mentioned safety because that is our concern--health and safety.
  In 1992 we had an energy bill before us. It had great bipartisan 
support. It was debated extensively in the Senate. Amendments were 
added, amendments were deleted. At no time was any amendment addressed 
to reducing health and safety standards at Yucca Mountain. Lo and 
behold, in the conference--and to those who are listening in this 
Chamber and who are not familiar with the legislative process, a 
conference occurs when the Senate version of a bill and the House 
version of a bill are different and they need to be reconciled. And a 
conference report is not amendable. So, if you can include it in the 
conference report, then by and large you have no opportunity to offer 
an amendment to strike it, to delete it, to remove it.
  This was what has now become a very familiar pattern, and that is an 
attempt to dilute, to reduce, to lower the health and safety standards. 
It sought to deprive the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, of 
its independent authority and judgment as to what health and safety 
standards ought to be. I think that is pretty outrageous. That is 
pretty outrageous. We opposed it. Understandably, we had no opportunity 
to remove it, it was an up-or-down vote on the bill, and the National 
Academy of Sciences has selected to make those kinds of 
recommendations. I believe the proponents of this amendment thought the 
National Academy of Sciences would provide them with what they sought, 
and that was a standard that would be much lower, much easier to 
accomplish.
  Let me just say, to the credit of the National Academy of Sciences, 
they did not take the bait. They did not take the bait. They 
recommended risk-based standards, something that the proponents of this 
strategy did not want. They pointed out that the international 
consensus, in terms of the millirem exposure rate on an annual basis 
from artificial sources above the natural background level should range 
from 5 to 30 millirems a year. I will have much more to say about that 
later on. They recommended protecting the most at-risk individual, and 
the use of the critical group for application of the standard. That is 
a scientific measuring standard that I must say I do not completely 
understand. But, to the credit of the National Academy of Sciences, 
that is an accepted standard, an accepted approach. And they 
recommended that standard apply to a period of greatest risk beyond the 
10,000 years--beyond.
  They further concluded that there is no scientific basis for the 
assumption that no human intrusion will take place.
  Finally, they recommended the broadest possible public comments and 
participation.
  Those observations are relevant because, in S. 1936, those are 
ignored. So, that is the history and experience that we have had, that 
brings us to the point we want to discuss some of the specifics of the 
bill and some of our concerns.
  Let me begin with the premise the Nuclear Waste Technical Review 
Board--we have heard that referred to a lot these days. One of the 
things in the 1987 amendments, those that produced the ill-named 
``screw Nevada'' bill, was a technical review board, the Nuclear Waste 
Technical Review Board.
  I think it is important to understand the context of this. This is 
not something that was foisted upon this Congress by the Nevada 
delegation. Congress was seeking advice and guidance on this very 
complicated issue, and they authorized a technical review board to have 
some of the most eminent scientists of our time: Dr. John E. Cantlon, 
chairman, Michigan State University, emeritus; Dr. Clarence R. Allen, 
California Institute of Technology, emeritus; Mr. John W. Arendt, of 
John W. Arendt Associates; Dr. Gary D. Brewer, University of Michigan; 
Dr. Jared L. Cahon, Yale University; Dr. Edward J. Cording, University 
of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne; Dr. Donald Langmuir, Colorado School 
of Mines, emeritus; Dr. John J. McKetta, Jr., University of Texas at 
Austin, emeritus; Dr. Jeffrey J. Wong, California Environmental 
Protection Agency; Dr. Patrick A. Domenico, Texas A&M University; Dr. 
Ellis D. Verink, Jr., University of Florida, emeritus; Dr. Dennis L. 
Price, the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and State University.

  These institutions are widely known and respected in America, as are 
their graduates or their employers, as the case may be. These are among 
the most eminent men of science. I emphasize the word ``science,'' Mr. 
President, because we frequently hear invoked on the floor of the 
Senate: This should all be done as a matter of science; let science 
prevail.
  May I say, our experience, from the onset of the 1982 Nuclear Waste 
Policy Act, is that science has always taken a back seat and politics, 
particularly nuclear politics and the desires of the industry, have 
taken the front seat. Here is what they said. It has been cited before 
but I think it needs to be mentioned again. After reviewing two dozen 
technical and nontechnical issues, the board framed this question:

       Is there an urgent technical need for centralized storage 
     of commercial spent fuel?

  The answer, in language that even the layman can understand:

       The Board sees no compelling technical or safety [no 
     technical or safety] reason [none] to move spent fuel to a 
     centralized storage facility for the next few years.

  That analysis did not please the nuclear industry. They went critical 
themselves. So, what has occurred, I think, is interesting. It is a 
side bar, to some extent, to this bill. But in the bill itself, after 
having created this technical review board, it is interesting to note 
in the evolution of this piece of legislation there have been many 
progenitors to S. 1936. The 1987 act that created the nuclear waste 
technical review board established its function as follows:
  The board shall evaluate the technical and scientific validity of 
activities undertaken by the Secretary after the date of enactment of 
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1987, including site characterization 
activities and activities relating to the packaging for transportation 
of high-radioactive-level waste or spent fuel.
  Follow with me, if you will, Mr. President and my colleagues, the 
progress of legislation dealing with the issue of high-level nuclear 
waste in this Congress. In January of 1995, S. 167 was introduced, and 
it did not change the scope or the responsibility of the Nuclear Waste 
Technical Review Board in any way.
  On February 23, 1995, H.R. 1020 was introduced in the other body; no 
changes to the authority and the responsibility of the Nuclear Waste 
Technical Review Board.

[[Page S7871]]

  September 20, 1995, H.R. 20, reported by the House Commerce 
Committee, unchanged in this respect.
  And even as recently as September 25, 1995, S. 1271, introduced by 
our colleague, the senior Senator from Idaho, and which was the bill 
that was originally on the floor until it was superseded by S. 1936, 
made no change--no change.
  In late March 1996, the technical review board issued its report 
concluding, without equivocation, without reservation, emphatically, 
that there is no need from a technical or safety perspective at this 
point to go to an interim storage.
  Lo and behold, on July 9, 1996, S. 1936 springs into existence, and 
now we see the responsibilities of the technical review board being 
limited.
  You do not really have to be a nuclear physicist to see what is 
happening there. The very board that the Congress created contains some 
of the most distinguished, eminent scientists in America, produces a 
finding which the nuclear utilities do not like. They were apoplectic, 
because if merit were to be the controlling force of this argument, as 
my senior colleague, who was a distinguished trial lawyer in our State, 
has often said, if we could argue this case before a fair and objective 
jury on the merits, it is not a contest; we win overwhelmingly on the 
merits.
  So when this distinguished board created by this Congress reaches a 
conclusion that is inconsistent with what the utilities want, we spank 
it: ``You've been a bad boy. We send you to your room, and we limit 
your authority.''
  Mr. President, that is power. That is heady stuff. I can imagine 
every nuclear utility boardroom in America burned a little extra fuel 
after the results of this report, because this undermines, destroys, 
demolishes the argument that there is a necessity for this piece of 
legislation.
  But that is not new. If one goes back to July 28, 1980, on the floor 
of the Senate, a debate occurred with respect to a piece of legislation 
supported and favored by the nuclear utilities that has such a familiar 
ring. I believe that I could quote the context of that debate, and the 
conclusion would be reached that is something that has been said on the 
floor of the U.S. Senate in just the past few days.
  Then is now. The nuclear utility industry was trying to engender a 
hysteria that there would be a brownout, that somehow there would be a 
shutdown and that parts of our country would be deprived of electrical 
power. In fact, it was asserted that if this piece of legislation were 
not enacted, that nuclear utility civilian reactors would have to close 
down as early as 1983 because they did not have the space or the 
capacity--it sounds familiar, we heard that argument on the floor 
today. Sixteen years ago that argument was made:

       It is an urgent problem, Mr. President. It is urgent 
     because we are running out of reactor space at reactors for 
     the storage of fuel, and if we do not build what we call 
     away-from-reactor storage--

  Another name for interim--

     and begin that soon, we could begin shutting down civilian 
     nuclear reactors in this country as soon as 1983.

  Sixteen years ago, nearly two decades, almost a score of years, what 
have the intervening years established with respect to that claim of 
hysteria? Not a single nuclear reactor in America in 16 years, as those 
statements were made, ever closed because of lack of storage space.
  Today we hear that cry again: ``Reactors will have to shut down; 
regions of the country will be deprived of power.''
  The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board makes the argument, after 
examining the evidence, that that is simply not true--is not true.
  So I think with respect to the argument of necessity, that is that 
somehow we need to get this all done, this is a red herring. So if the 
undergirding premise is that this legislation is before us as a matter 
of national priority, that there is a compelling national interest, 
that, indeed, there is an urgency in acting, that Heaven forbid, if we 
do not enact it, some catastrophic thing could occur to the electrical 
supply power availability in America, we have heard that before. They 
were saying that 16 years ago, and it simply is not so.
  There is no need. Now I grant you, for the nuclear utilities, it 
would be Christmas in July; they would love it. That is what they have 
wanted for years. They have every right to make that assertion, as does 
any individual or company in America. But making that claim does not 
make it true, and making that assertion does not make it right, and the 
claim and the assertion is blatantly false. There is no emergency. 
There is no crisis. There is no necessity to act. So this whole 
framework of crisis, urgency before us, simply does not exist. And we 
ought to understand that. There is no need to take any action.

  I have heard it said by my colleagues, who reach a different 
conclusion than I have on this issue, that this is an important 
environmental issue. ``We must take action to protect and save the 
environment. This is the most important environmental issue, the most 
important environmental votes,'' words to that affect, to paraphrase, 
to be fair. That has been asserted by our colleagues who are making the 
arguments on behalf of the nuclear utilities.
  Let us examine those arguments. The League of Conservation Voters, in 
responding earlier this year to S. 1271--it is, with respect to the 
overall policy in terms of how it deals with environmental issues, in 
my view, no different than S. 1936. We will go into that in a moment. 
Here is what one of the premier environmental organizations in America 
says. ``S. 1271''--just insert S. 1936 in its place--``would severely 
weaken environmental standards for nuclear waste disposal by carving 
loopholes in the National Environmental Policy Act and the Safe 
Drinking Water Act in forbidding the Environmental Protection Agency 
from issuing radiation standards. Centralized interim storage will be 
not only hazardous, but unnecessary and expensive.'' The League of 
Conservation Voters.
  The League of Women Voters, expressing its opposition to S. 167, 
introduced by one of our colleagues earlier in the session, but 
essentially incorporating the same concept of interim storage with the 
environmental laws, in effect, being set aside when they are in 
conflict, ``We believe that the bill's approach is wrong and that the 
bill creates more problems than it solves.'' And then the league went 
on to say, ``We fear that the implementation of S. 167, the Johnston 
bill, will result in long-term, above-ground storage of highly 
radioactive materials in an unsafe location.'' They opposed the bill.
  Mr. ABRAHAM assumed the Chair.
  Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, the Sierra Club is another preeminent 
environmental organization in the country. The Sierra Club has 
indicated that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1996, S. 1271, which is 
now S. 1936--a bill that threatens the health and safety of hundreds of 
communities nationwide--will soon come to the Senate floor. ``On behalf 
of the Sierra Club's half-million members nationwide, I urge you to 
oppose it.'' And then the Sierra Club goes on to observe: ``There is no 
technical basis for choosing the Nevada Test Site for an interim 
storage facility for high-level nuclear waste.''
  Another organization that has strongly opposed this is Public 
Citizen:

       The Senate may soon vote on S. 1271, the Nuclear Waste 
     Policy Act of 1996. On behalf of our Nationwide membership, I 
     urge you to oppose this misguided bill and to support the 
     filibusters by Senator Bryan and Senator Reid against the 
     measure.

  U.S. Public Interest Research Group:

       We are writing to urge your opposition to S. 1271, the 
     Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1996. S. 1271 is an environmental 
     disaster and should be rejected. S. 1271 would roll back 
     environmental protections, including most of the National 
     Environmental Policy Act, forbidding EPA from setting 
     radiation release standards--

  It goes on to observe, ``preempting all State and Federal 
environmental protection laws.''
  Friends of the Earth expresses its opposition to S. 1936:

       On behalf of the thousands of Friends of the Earth members 
     nationwide, I urge you to oppose 1271.

  Citizens Action has written to express its opposition.
  Greenpeace has written to express its opposition.
  Also opposing this are the Citizens Awareness Network, Military 
Production Network, Nuclear Information Resource Service, Environmental 
Action Foundation, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, 20/20 
Vision, Native Youth Alliance, Nuclear Waste Citizens Coalition, 
Prairie Island Coalition,

[[Page S7872]]

Safe Energy Communication Council, Nuclear Information Resource 
Service.
  Mr. President, the point has been asserted on the floor that indeed 
this is a critical piece of environmental legislation. I agree. It is a 
disaster. It is a disaster. For a quarter of a century with, by and 
large, bipartisan support, a system of environmental measures has been 
enacted into law that has cleaned our air, improved the quality of our 
water, protected endangered resources in America, and that is why every 
national environmental organization that I am aware of has indicated 
its strong opposition to the bill.
  So when my friends on the other side of this issue argue that this is 
an important environmental measure--perhaps the most important to be 
undertaken in this session--and that we need to enact this piece of 
legislation, S. 1936, because it is important for the environment, 
there is no evidence by any of the responsible national environmental 
organizations that share that conclusion. Indeed, their view is quite 
to the contrary, that this legislation would be a disaster.
  Now, I want to take you through some of the key provisions of the 
bill. S. 1936, like S. 1271, emasculates a number of environmental 
laws. Let me call my colleagues' attention to the provisions that do 
this. I have heard it asserted on this floor that indeed we need to 
protect and retain those environmental provisions that currently are 
the law. S. 1936, in effect, is a rewrite of the Nuclear Waste Policy 
Act of 1982. If this were enacted--and I believe that it will not be, 
based upon the vote this morning. It is clear that there are enough 
votes to sustain a Presidential veto. But if it were enacted, this 
would rewrite the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. It is claimed that 
S. 1936 is an improvement over its predecessor, S. 1271, because it has 
been asserted that indeed we protect those environmental provisions of 
the law. That is not the case, Mr. President. Section 501, at page 73, 
makes it pretty clear. It is subtle. Give marks where marks are due to 
the nuclear utilities. They have crafted this very cleverly. But here 
is what it says:

       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.

  Mr. President, I know the distinguished occupant of the chair is an 
able and distinguished scholar, and he need not have this Senator 
interpret the law for him, and I do not in any way denigrate his 
ability. But there are millions of people watching this Congress and 
what we are going to do. There has been, in my judgment, a drumbeat of 
misguided efforts on the part of the new Congress to simply roll back 
the protections that have been incorporated in our legislative 
framework for more than two decades. Twenty-five years ago, probably 
two-thirds of the rivers, streams, and lakes in America were so 
polluted that you could not swim in them and you could not fish in 
them. Air pollution problems were unchecked and growing in seriousness.
  It is my view that when those who write about our time of the last 
quarter-century, they will not write favorably about much of what has 
been done. But one of the great public policy achievements of the 
1970's and 1980's is what we have done in the environment. Let me say, 
giving credit where credit is due, that a Republican President had much 
to do with that early environmental legislation. Richard Nixon can 
certainly be faulted--and this Senator does fault him for other conduct 
unrelated to the environment--but much of what occurred early on 
enjoyed his very strong support and was bipartisan.
  Today we have reversed those numbers. Today it is two-thirds of the 
rivers and streams and lakes in America are once again fishable and 
swimmable. One can only recall that a television nightly talk show host 
had a field day when, I believe, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught 
fire in the late 1960's it was so polluted; the river that courses by 
the Nation's Capital, the river that George Washington watched from his 
home on the banks of the Potomac, so polluted you could not swim in it. 
You could not fish in it. Today you can.
  None of this is to suggest that those rivers or that our air has 
returned to a pristine condition, but it is a fair analysis and a sound 
conclusion that the environment today is much better for our children, 
and if we do not emasculate those environmental laws it will be much 
better for our children's children as a result of the actions taken by 
our predecessors in this institution in enacting those major 
environmental provisions.
  So I must say that this Congress does not have a good track record in 
terms of what some, particularly in the other body, would like to do 
with the environmental laws.
  So that is why the National Environmental Policy Act, the Federal 
Land Policy and Management Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery 
Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and 
Liability Act that we know as the Superfund, the Clean Air Act, the 
Clean Water Act, Antiquities Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom 
Act, Archeological Resources Protection Act, the Endangered Species 
Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, Farmland Protection Policy Act, 
Federal Facility Compliance Act, Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, 
Federal Water Pollution Control Act, National Historic Preservation 
Act, Noise Control Act of 1972, Toxic Substances Control Act, Emergency 
Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, and the Pollution Prevention 
Act of 1990, Mr. President, are part of an elaborate and comprehensive 
framework of environmental laws designed to protect all Americans--all 
Americans. They are not restricted to any region. No particular area or 
community is excluded. That is a right to which all Americans are 
entitled.
  Here is what this act does. As I was sharing a moment ago, if any 
requirement of S. 1936 is in conflict with any one of these enactments, 
any one, this bill directs that they be ignored; that if there is a 
conflict S. 1936 prevails, wiping out the protection of a whole series 
of environmental laws.
  That is one of the reasons the environmental community has advanced 
such strong opposition. This would be a major public policy disaster, 
and for the first time we would say in America that some of these 
environmental laws are not available for the protection of some 
Americans who happen to live in a particular region of the country.
  Mr. GRAMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. REID. Who yields time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. REID. It is my understanding, having spoken with Senator 
Murkowski, that he wanted to yield some of his time to the Senator from 
Minnesota.
  Mr. GRAMS. Senator Murkowski yields time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may proceed.
  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I commend the majority leader for his 
leadership in bringing S. 1936 to the Senate floor. I also commend my 
colleagues, Mr. Craig and Mr. Murkowski, for their tireless efforts in 
creating a bipartisan solution to this national crisis, because S. 1936 
will ensure a safe solution to the problem of nuclear waste storage for 
the 21st century and beyond. I believe this is the most critical piece 
of environmental legislation that Congress will consider this decade, 
if not for this century.
  When our grandchildren look back at this historic debate, they should 
read that we fulfilled a pledge to resolve this Nation's spent nuclear 
fuel crisis, and we did it in an economically and environmentally 
friendly way.
  This challenge has eluded us for nearly 15 years, but as the critical 
1998 deadline rapidly approaches, Members from both sides of the aisle, 
from Alaska to my home State of Minnesota to Florida, have come 
together to devise a national solution. I firmly believe that S. 1936 
represents our best hope, and today we stand ready to move ahead with 
this plan.
  Over the last few days, we have heard from some of our colleagues 
that this legislation is unnecessary. Some have argued that we could 
leave the spent fuel at its current sites until we find a permanent 
place to put it. Some have argued that resolving this issue would put 
the taxpayers on the hook rather than those who are responsible.
  But what my colleagues fail to mention in their statements is that 
the

[[Page S7873]]

ratepayers are taxpayers. Every American, directly or indirectly, has 
benefited from nuclear power, and they are already on the hook, so to 
speak. After all, ratepayers nationwide have already paid over $10 
billion into the nuclear waste trust fund.
  Mr. President, I have two letters regarding this point. One comes 
from Commissioner Kris Sanda of the Minnesota Department of Public 
Service, and another comes from a CEO of a Minnesota utility. I ask 
unanimous consent to have both printed in the Record immediately 
following the text of my full statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, anyone who has followed this contentious 
debate will agree achieving this legislative solution has been a very 
difficult process, but it is a process that we cannot afford to wait 
until after the next election to resolve.
  The Department of Energy is legally bound to begin accepting spent 
fuel in the next few years, and yet, until this Congress, we have not 
identified even a temporary storage location, let alone finish 
suitability tests on a permanent one. And the pressure by the States 
for a solution continues to build.
  Over 30 States across this Nation have commercial and nuclear waste 
that is now stored inside their borders. Unless Congress enacts a 
permanent solution soon, States, like my home State of Minnesota, will 
lose between 20 and 30 percent of their overall energy supply shortly 
after the turn of the century. The irony is that the ratepayers of my 
State have already paid $250 million-plus to the Federal Government for 
the promise that the waste would be removed.
  Nearly two decades later, ratepayers are no closer to getting rid of 
their nuclear waste than they were before the Department of Energy gave 
its written promise to remove it.
  Mr. President, I would also like to add that that has led Minnesota's 
Department of Public Service Commissioner Sanda to call for the halting 
of the ratepayer contributions to this fund.
  While this decision is pending before Minnesota's Public Utility 
Commission, the State of Iowa has also just begun a similar process, 
announcing a notice of inquiry into such an option. The movement across 
the Nation has begun. The failure to enact S. 1936 will have a 
cascading effect across the Nation, and then it will truly require a 
taxpayer bailout.
  But S. 1936 would change that. Under S. 1936, we will put into place 
the mechanism to begin spent fuel removal and storage. That will happen 
before the end of this century. This legislation enables the Federal 
Government to live up to its legal obligations to the taxpayers and 
also to live up to its moral obligations to the citizens of this 
country and also to the environment. By naming an interim storage site 
at area 25 of the Nevada test site, this bill unties the hands of the 
Secretary of Energy. Since the current Secretary requested such 
legislative action in a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural 
Resources committee last year, one would wonder why this administration 
remains adamantly opposed to an initiative that fully empowers the DOE 
to move forward with the program, and particularly since the 
administration claims to want a permanent solution to this 
environmental crisis.
  This is not the first time that the administration or the DOE has 
dragged its feet. Last year, I met with the Secretary and members of 
the Civilian Waste Program to discuss Minnesota's waste problem. While 
the DOE appeared sympathetic to the plight of Minnesotans, they could 
not foresee anything near having an interim site completed prior to the 
year 2003 and for a cost of less than $300 million.
  Since this was significantly beyond the cost and the time projections 
for other private storage initiatives that were under development 
outside of the DOE, I introduced legislation to privatize the DOE 
interim storage facility. But then miraculously the DOE's own 
projections were nearly halved by both time and cost by the time we had 
the next Senate hearing.
  So it is amazing how many tax dollars can be saved by the mere, 
simple introduction of competition into this process. That is why I was 
pleased to have the opportunity to work with the author of this 
legislation, Senator Craig, and the chairman of the Energy Committee to 
ensure the maximization of private-sector participation. Furthermore, 
Mr. President, I believe it also sets the stage for further 
privatization of the overall program.
  Mr. President, there are many key elements of S. 1936 which have far-
reaching benefits, but I believe the greatest benefit of the bill is 
that it does provide a real workable and environmentally safe solution 
for Minnesota's and also the Nation's spent nuclear fuel.
  Since I came to Congress in 1993, resolving this issue for Minnesota 
has been one of my highest priorities. Today we begin the process of 
doing just that. So on behalf of my constituents, the men and women and 
children of Minnesota, I want to thank the authors of S. 1936 for 
providing us with a reason to restore the people's faith in their 
Federal Government. As we put aside the politics and get down to the 
work ahead of us, I look forward to the remaining debate as an 
opportunity to also move forward resolving this most difficult crisis. 
I urge all of my colleagues to support S. 1936 when this body begins 
full consideration of the measure. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield 
the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

         Minnesota Department of Public Service, Office of the 
           Commissioner,
                                       St. Paul, MN, June 6, 1996.
     Hon. Rod Grams,
     U.S. Senate, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Grams: I am writing to thank you for your 
     support of Senate File 1271 (S.F. 1271). Passage of S.F. 1271 
     this session is crucial to our Nation's taxpayers/ratepayers. 
     Entities as diverse as the Nuclear Energy Institute and the 
     National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners have 
     calculated cost savings of five to ten billion dollars to 
     United States taxpayers/ratepayers if S.F. 1271 becomes law. 
     We must succeed in our effort to stop the Department of 
     Energy and the Clinton Administration from imposing these 
     unnecessary costs on the Nation.
       I has come to my attention that opponents to S.F. 1271 have 
     stated that since not all Americans are served by utilities 
     that own nuclear generating stations, those citizens will not 
     benefit from the cost savings contained in S.F. 1271. As the 
     Commissioner of your home state's lead energy policy agency, 
     I can assure you that argument is flat out wrong. I trust the 
     following discussion will illustrate this point.
       For reliability reasons, our Nation's electrical grid is 
     divided into several regional power pools. The Mid-Continent 
     Power Pool (MAPP) serves our home state, North and South 
     Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, portions of Montana and Wisconsin, 
     and the Canadian provinces of Manitoba an Saskatchewan. In 
     addition to ensuring the reliable delivery of electrical 
     energy, MAPP serves as a clearinghouse for spot and 
     intermediate term market for energy and capacity 
     transactions. MAPP executes transactions between electric 
     utilities that have lower cost generation and those that have 
     higher cost generation. Given that energy produced by 
     Northern States Power Company's Prairie Island and Monticello 
     nuclear plants are among the lowest cost units in the MAPP 
     region, there are certain times of day and seasons of the 
     year when energy from those plants is sold by NSP to other 
     utilities in MAPP. While our records do not allow us to match 
     the sale of energy from specific plants for resale to other 
     utilities, energy from Prairie Island and Monticello formed 
     part of sales made by NSP to the following utilities that 
     serve Minnesota ratepayers in 1995: \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \1\ This information is taken from the Northern States Power 
     Company's 1995 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Form 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Cooperative Power Association;
       Interstate Power Company;
       Minnesota Power Company;
       Otter Tail Power Company;
       Missouri Basin Municipal Power Agency;
       United Power Association
       Minnkota Power Cooperative;
       Dairyland Power Cooperative;
       Southern Municipal Power Agency;
       City of North St. Paul;
       City of Olivia;
       City of Shakopee;
       City of Winthrop;
       City of Delano;
       City of Glencoe;
       City of Truman;
       City of New Ulm;
       City of Sleepy Eye;
       City of Blue Earth; and
       City of East Grand Forks.
       The utilities listed above have been benefited from the 
     ability to substitute lower cost purchased power from NSP. 
     Had they used their own plants to generate their power, the 
     energy costs would have been higher. Those higher energy 
     costs would translate into higher rates for consumers. I 
     should also note that the Nuclear Waste Fund's (NWF) one mil 
     per kilowatt hour fee

[[Page S7874]]

     is included in the price these utilities pay for power 
     purchased from NSP. As a result, ratepayers from the 
     utilities listed above also pay into the NWF. Consequently, 
     it is without question that the vast majority of Minnesotans 
     pay into the Nuclear Waste Fund via their electric rates and 
     that all Minnesotans benefit from NSP's nuclear facilities, 
     regardless of which utility provides their power. The same is 
     true for electric consumers in North Dakota, South Dakota, 
     Iowa and Wisconsin, as well as virtually all consumers across 
     the country, even those whose primary utility does not use 
     nuclear fuel to generate electricity.
       Thanks again for your continued support for S.F. 1271.
           Sincerely,
                                                       Kris Sanda,
     Commissioner.
                                                                    ____



                                    Northern States Power Co.,

                                   Minneapolis, MN, June 20, 1996.
     Hon. Rod Grams,
     U.S. Senate,
     Anoka, MN.
       Dear Senator Grams: I wanted to take this opportunity to 
     applaud you for your leadership efforts to resolve the 
     commercial spent nuclear fuel disposal issue. Your co-
     sponsorship of S. 1271, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1996 
     is greatly appreciated. The bill provides the right national 
     policy solution for Minnesota and the nation as a whole. Your 
     support will assure a healthy business climate in our state 
     due to the low cost power Prairie Island produces efficiently 
     and safely.
       Time is of the essence to move legislation in this session 
     of Congress. Senate action is critical prior to the July 4th 
     recess. Recently, the Minnesota Department of Public Service 
     (DPS) recommended that customer payments into the Nuclear 
     Waste Fund be withheld and placed into an escrow account. 
     Other states could follow suit. The Minnesota DPS action 
     underscores the growing frustration among state regulators 
     with the Administration's delays in developing an integrated 
     nuclear waste management system. We would appreciate your 
     help in urging prompt floor action on S. 1271.
       S. 1271 recognizes the unique funding mechanism for 
     managing the nation's commercial spent nuclear fuel. The 
     Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 created a one-tenth of a 
     cent surcharge on electricity generated by nuclear power 
     plants so that consumers who benefit from the electricity 
     also would fund the nation's radioactive waste management 
     system.
       As you have correctly stated, in many cases there is no 
     difference between the consumers of electricity and 
     taxpayers. All consumers of electricity in the Northern 
     States Power Company (NSP) Service Territory System, whether 
     in the Twin Cities or Fargo, North Dakota, have contributed 
     to the nation's radioactive waste management fund. In 
     addition, many other Minnesota citizens are contributing to 
     the waste program. As with other nuclear utilities, nuclear 
     waste fund payments are internalized in NSP's wholesale and 
     retail power sales--making even wholesale customers (which 
     could include cooperatives or municipal utilities) 
     contributors to the nuclear waste fund.
       Utility customers to date have committed more than $12 
     billion to the nuclear waste trust fund. Not only have 
     Minnesota consumers paid $226 million to the fund, they also 
     have paid about $20 million for added on-site storage 
     capacity at the Prairie Island nuclear power plant, and are 
     paying for significant wind development and other costs 
     associated with the Prairie Island legislation.
       Each year, more than $600 million from electricity 
     consumers is paid to the U.S. Treasury to fund the program. 
     However, Congress appropriated only $315 million for the 
     Energy Department's civilian high-level waste management 
     program in FY '96, and only $151.6 million of this came from 
     the Nuclear Waste Fund. The remainder comes from the Treasury 
     to pay for defense wastes. The balance in the fund is now 
     more than $5.8 billion, which accrues interest each and every 
     year.
       The federal government is responsible for taking title to 
     and managing spent nuclear fuel beginning in 1998 under 
     provisions of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and contracts 
     signed with utilities who own and operate nuclear power 
     plants. Each component of the waste management system-
     including the transportation-must meet rigorous Nuclear 
     Regulatory Commission regulations to protect public health 
     and safety.
       S. 1271 does not expose taxpayers to an under funded 
     liability. Just the opposite is true. As part of the funding 
     profile for the program, the federal government must pay only 
     the appropriate share for all defense-related nuclear waste 
     that will be disposed at the repository. DOE has recently 
     revised its estimates of the defense program's share of the 
     program costs from 15 percent to 20 percent, and it will 
     probably grow to at least 30 percent. This alone will likely 
     offset any predicted ``unfunded'' shortfalls.
       Furthermore, S. 1271 is directly concerned with the costs 
     of the program. Provisions in S. 1271 are specifically 
     designed to provide cost and schedule efficiencies that will 
     ensure the 1.0 mill/kWhr fee, in addition to the defense 
     contribution, will be more than adequate to fully fund this 
     program. Studies that show the fee is not adequate are 
     entirely based on the old DOE program which has been proven 
     to be costly and inefficient.
       However, delays will cost. It is estimated that electricity 
     consumers will have to pay an additional $7.7 billion for 
     extended on-site management of spent nuclear fuel if the 
     federal government does not develop a central storage 
     facility by 1998, and the repository does not begin operation 
     by 2015. Like the Nuclear Waste Fund fee, this added cost 
     will be borne by electricity consumers, not taxpayers.
       As stated, studies attempting to show that the Nuclear 
     Waste Fund is inadequate to cover the cost of high-level 
     radioactive waste management are based on outdated DOE 
     program data. S. 1271 refocuses the DOE program to provide 
     cost and schedule efficiencies that will ensure that the fee, 
     coupled with the DOE defense payments for the program, will 
     fully fund America's spent fuel management system.
       Finally, you are aware of the continuing controversy of 
     nuclear waste in Minnesota. Just last session, efforts were 
     being made to further penalize NSP and its customers for 
     storing nuclear waste at Prairie Island. The federal 
     government's failure to keep its commitments is a direct 
     cause of this controversy, which has only added costs to our 
     customers' bills.
       I offer you my encouragement and support to move S. 1271 to 
     the Senate floor for action this year. Many thanks for your 
     leadership efforts on this issue of critical national 
     importance.
           Sincerely,
                                                       Jim Howard.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. BRYAN. I yield myself such time as I may need.
  Mr. President, during the course of the debate on S. 1936, as it has 
resonated across this Chamber today and earlier, a contention has been 
advanced that indeed S. 1936 is a much improved form of its 
predecessor, S. 1271, because it has been asserted that there is the 
full application of the National Environmental Policy Act, one of these 
very important pieces of legislation which earlier I had described as 
an essential part of the environmental protection fabric that protects 
all Americans.
  I invite my colleagues to read this bill, as I know they all have or 
will before casting their vote. Here is what it says about the National 
Environmental Policy Act, and particularly an environmental impact 
statement.
  It provides for an environmental impact statement. So far so good. 
Then it goes on to say: But the Secretary shall not consider the need 
for an interim storage facility, shall not consider the time of the 
initial availability of the interim storage, shall not consider any 
alternatives to the storage of spent nuclear fuel and high-level 
radioactive waste, shall not consider any alternatives to the site of 
the facility, shall not consider any alternatives to the design of the 
criteria.
  Mr. President, that is what an environmental impact statement is all 
about, to consider the range of options that may be available and to 
ascertain which of those may be the preferable course of action. So, 
for it to be contended that the National Environmental Policy Act is 
protected and provided for in this bill would be equivalent to 
asserting that the Bill of Rights is fully applicable, however, we have 
deleted the right of free speech, we have deleted the right of freedom 
of religion, we have deleted the right of bail, we have deleted the 
right to counsel. In effect you have nothing, you have absolutely 
nothing.
  So that, again, Mr. President, is one of the more compelling 
arguments that brings every national environmental leader in America to 
the conclusion that enacting this piece of legislation, S. 1936, would 
savage the environmental protections which Americans have sought and 
enjoyed for more than two decades. It would, in effect, preempt State 
and other Federal laws, such as those depicted behind me on the chart. 
And it would, in effect, so restrict the Environmental Policy Act as to 
make those kinds of analyses almost worthless.
  Let me turn to one other issue, fairly briefly, before I conclude. 
That is the question of standards. S. 1936, among its more astounding 
provisions is something that is pretty technical but something that 
affects the health and safety of every Nevadan. We are talking about 
the radioactive emissions standards. Those standards are measured, in 
terms of exposure, in terms of millirems. What this bill provides is 
for an annual dose of 100 millirems. So 100 millirems is the standard 
which is set under the provisions of this bill.
  Now, 100 millirems--Mr. President, the Safe Drinking Water Act 
provides for a standard of 4 millirems. The EPA

[[Page S7875]]

has set that standard. For WIPP, that is a facility in New Mexico that 
receives or is scheduled to receive transuranic waste, that provides 
for a 15-millirem standard. The National Academy of Sciences, in terms 
of its range of exposures, recommends 10 to 30 millirems. This piece of 
legislation has the audacity to say that 100 millirems is the standard 
for those of us in Nevada. Absolutely outrageous.

  We have heard earlier in this Congress from our colleagues from New 
Mexico, who have been concerned about the health and safety of New 
Mexicans. One can certainly understand that. On the 20th of June of 
this year, Senator Domenici arose and made the comment: ``What is most 
important to us,'' referring to himself and his colleague, Senator 
Bingaman, ``and what is most important to the people of New Mexico is 
that as this underground facility proceeds,'' referring to the WIPP 
facility, ``to the point where it may be opened and finally be a 
repository, that it be subject to the Environmental Protection Agency's 
most strict requirements with reference to health and safety.''
  Let me make that point again. Senator Domenici is absolutely right. 
What he and his colleague were saying is that before the transuranic 
waste is received at the WIPP facility in New Mexico, the New Mexico 
Senators want to be assured, in order to protect the health and safety 
of their constituents, residents of the State of New Mexico, that the 
Environmental Protection Agency's most stringent requirements with 
reference to health and safety be imposed. Now, that strikes me as 
being very reasonable.

  Throughout that particular take, the distinguished senior Senator 
kept emphasizing the importance of leaving those standards in place and 
giving the EPA the ability to make such determinations. That, I submit, 
is sound policy. By what standard of logic, by what reasoning process, 
what kind of analytical, convoluted reasoning would lead to a 
conclusion that that is the reasonable standard to be applied in New 
Mexico-- that is, let the EPA set the standard--but somehow in Nevada, 
which is targeted for high-level nuclear waste, for us, ought to be 100 
millirems? That simply makes no sense at all, none, absolutely none, 
and it is outrageous.
  Consistent with an evolving pattern of conduct, in 1992, as I was 
commenting earlier in my speech today, the nuclear utilities in the 
energy act that was enacted that year, circuitously sought to deprive 
the EPA of the ability to set the standard in Nevada should it become 
the recipient of nuclear waste. To refresh the recollection of my 
colleagues, that energy bill was processed with a number of amendments 
both in the House and on the floor of the Senate, and not a day of 
hearing was held with respect to the standards for nuclear waste in 
Nevada.
  In the conference, where an attempt is made to reconcile differences 
between the Senate version and the House version, a provision is 
inserted that did deprive the EPA of setting the standard--the very 
thing that Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman, rightly, and we all 
agree on the floor, needed for their protection in New Mexico in the 
transuranic facility. Namely, to make sure that the EPA sets the most 
stringent standard for health and safety.
  Now, under the artifice of the conferenced process, the EPA is 
deprived of jurisdiction. My senior colleague and I pointed that out on 
the floor. I believe it is fair to say that most every colleague that 
we talked to agreed with our provision that it was absolutely 
scandalous that an attempt would be made to deprive the EPA of its 
ability to exercise its independent judgment to fix that standard.
  We were locked into a parliamentary situation that was inescapable. 
The energy bill contained a number of very desirable provisions totally 
unrelated to the Nevada situation. Because in a conference we were 
unable to get an amendment to delete that provision, my colleague and I 
fought valiantly but unsuccessfully in terms of killing that bill.
  Now, I share that background because the pattern I have described, if 
you do not like what the scientists you have empowered to make a 
decision tell you, then you ignore them. That is what occurred that so 
angered the nuclear utilities, when they were asked, as part of the 
Nuclear Technical Review Board to make some judgments, and they 
concluded there was no crisis, no urgency, no need whatever to have 
interim storage at this time. That was their conclusion. That does not 
fit with the strategy and the desire of the nuclear utilities, so 
immediately, in this legislation, S. 1936, they are legislatively 
spanked, and their jurisdiction authority is restricted.
  Now we have the National Academy of Sciences. They are inserted in 
place of the EPA in the 1992 Energy Act and they are instructed to come 
back with their own report. Mr. President, they did. In a document 
entitled, ``Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards,'' some of the 
more eminent scientists of our time:
  Robert W. Fri, chair, Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C.; 
John F. Ahearne, Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, Research 
Triangle Park, N.C.; Jean M. Bahr, University of Wisconsin, Madison; R. 
Darryl Banks, World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C.; Robert J. 
Budnitz, Future Resources Associates, Berkeley, CA; Sol Burstein, 
Wisconsin Electric Power, Milwaukee (retired); Melvin W. Carter, 
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta (professor emeritus); Charles 
Fairhurst, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Charles McCombie, 
National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste, Wettingen, 
Switzerland; Fred M. Phillips, New Mexico Institute of Mining and 
Technology, Socorro; Thomas H. Pigford, University of California, 
Berkeley, Oakland (professor emeritus); Arthur C. Upton, New Mexico 
School of Medicine, Santa Fe; Chris G. Whipple, ICF Kaiser Engineers, 
Oakland, CA; Gilbert F. White, University of Colorado, Boulder; and 
Susan D. Wiltshire, JK Research Associates, Inc., Beverly, MA.
  I mention those names so my colleagues and those who are listening to 
the debate will know there are no Nevadans. These are scientists. Here 
is what they said in response to the 1992 amendment that was 
interjected into the conference. Let me make a line-by-line comparison 
with what we have in S. 1936. My colleagues will note it indicates S. 
1271, but S. 1936 makes no change at all.
  On the left side, Form of Standard, Level of Standard, Who Is To Be 
Protected--that is the classification. The top, NAS Recommendation, is 
the product of the scientists whose names I have read. On the far right 
would be what this piece of legislation does.
  Form of standard recommended by the National Academy of Sciences is 
to be risk based. What does S. 1836 provide? Mr. President, 100 
millirem a year, set by statute. We talked at some length about that a 
moment ago.
  Level of standard: The National Academy says no specific 
recommendation, but points out internationally recognized consensus is 
between 5 millirem and 30 millirem a year. Let me just interject that 
is a standard that is rather universally acclaimed. I believe that 
every country that has considered that standard, and we will share the 
names of those countries that have nuclear power in Europe and have 
adopted a standard that is within that range or even less.
  Who is to be protected? ``Critical group''--a small, relatively 
homogenous group whose location and habits are representative of those 
expected to receive the highest doses. S. 1936 is a much more 
restricted standard. A person whose physiology, age, general health, 
agricultural practices, eating habits and social behavior represent the 
average for persons living in the vicinity of the site. Extremes in 
social behavior, eating habits or other relevant practices or 
characteristics shall not be considered.
  Then the question goes on as to how long must a standard be met, 
because we are talking about something that is lethal for thousands and 
thousands of years. I might point out in the recorded history of 
civilization, no society that we are aware of has ever built or 
designed anything that has lasted for 10,000 years. It is a marvel to 
the modern world, as it certainly was to the ancient world, some of the 
impressive architectural achievements achieved by the ancients--the 
pyramids, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the 
Parthenon, and many others are all architectural wonders that today 
even in

[[Page S7876]]

our sophisticated time, we marvel and admire.
  But none of those have existed for 10,000 years. So how long a 
standard must be met is particularly significant to the health and 
safety of those persons who will be living in that area generations 
from now.
  The National Academy of Sciences says, ``The repository should be 
required to meet a standard during a period of greatest risk''--no 
scientific basis for limiting the time period to 10,000 years or any 
other value. What do we have in this piece of legislation? A thousand 
years.
  Let me skip and go down to a couple more here. The human intrusion 
standard. The National Academy of Sciences said, ``No scientific basis 
for assuming there would be no human intrusion. The performance of the 
repository having been intruded upon should be assessed using the same 
analytical methods and assumptions, including those about the biosphere 
and critical groups used in the assessment or performance for the 
undisturbed case.''
  What does S. 1936 direct? ``The statute instructs the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission to assume that human intrusion will not take 
place.''
  As to how to resolve public policy issues raised by the standard, 
here is the recommendation of the National Academy of Sciences: ``We 
recommend that resolution of policy issues be done through a rulemaking 
process that allows opportunity for wide-ranging input from all 
interested parties.''
  You do not have to be an eminent scientist to believe that that is 
reasonable. That is a process that allows an opportunity for people to 
be heard, to express a viewpoint.
  S. 1936 says, ``No public comment allowed.''
  So, as you can see, S. 1936 evolved and is part of a pattern that 
ought to be patently obvious to any observer. Once again, the Congress 
invites a distinguished scientific group to make its recommendations, 
and if the recommendations are not to the liking of the nuclear utility 
industry and not to the liking of the industry because they impose some 
reasonably stringent standards to protect health and safety, we trash 
them, we ignore them and say, ``Oops, sorry we asked. We had no idea 
you would tell us we had to do that to provide the very basic 
components of health and safety.''
  And so, by way of a concluding observation, before yielding to my 
colleague for him to continue his comments and observations, this bill, 
from an environmental and public health safety perspective, is an 
embarrassment, it is a travesty, it is a legislative abomination, it is 
an assault upon the health and safety and dignity of human life. It 
applies only to those of us in Nevada, who are targeted to receive this 
eye-level nuclear waste.
  By what standard of fairness, by what standard of objectivity can it 
be defended or justified that one small area in America be set apart, 
and that it be advocated that the panoply of protections provided under 
the environmental laws of our country should have no application to 
them if they in any way conflict with the nuclear utilities' desire to 
pursue, as embodied in S. 1936? What is the moral justification of 
rejecting the recommendations of an objective body of scientists, who 
have said, ``These are the standards that we recommend, in terms of 
exposure, for those persons who may be living in the vicinity"? They 
are rejected out of hand and simply ignored.
  So not only is this, from a public policy point of 
view, indefensible, not only does it legally deprive Nevadans of their 
rights and their health and protection, it is morally flawed as well, 
because it suggests implicitly that somehow those of us who, by birth 
or choice, have chosen to make our homes in Nevada should be treated 
separate and apart from other Americans, and our health and safety is 
less important than those who live in New Mexico or in other States--
all with the singular goal in mind of advancing the interests of the 
powerful special interest lobby, which is relentless in its purpose, 
and that is the nuclear utility industry, as they seek to foist their 
nuclear waste upon those of us in Nevada.

  I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I yield such time as I may consume.
  Mr. President, I, first of all, want to talk about what some of the 
people have said who support this legislation. First of all, the 
supporters of S. 1936 are appealing to States with nuclear powerplants 
or nuclear operations, implying that their well-being depends upon the 
passage of S. 1936. This is not true. There will be brownouts without 
S. 1936. They said the same thing in 1980, as my colleague from Nevada 
so aptly pointed out in his earlier statement.
  I say before my friend leaves the floor, I consider myself well-
versed on the subject of nuclear waste, and I do not often 
acknowledge--publicly, at least--that someone knows more about a 
subject than I do. But it is without question that the Senator from 
Nevada, my colleague, has devoted months and months of his professional 
career to understanding this issue, and no one in America understands 
the issue better than he. So I appreciate very much the statement made 
by my colleague.
  He clearly pointed out the verbatim statement made by the former 
chairman of the Energy Committee, now the ranking member, that there 
would be brownouts in 1980. Of course, there were none. There will be 
no brownouts if S. 1936 does not pass. There will be no brownouts 
without S. 1936. If there are brownouts, it will not be as a result of 
not hauling nuclear waste away from the plants.
  They said the same in 1980, that there would be a brownout if offsite 
storage was not available in 1983. Here we are, 16 years later, without 
offsite storage and without brownouts from the shutdown of nuclear 
reactors at power generation sites. There will be no end to nuclear 
shipbuilding without S. 1936. We know that. There will be no nuclear 
waste dumps in these States if this bill does not pass. The current law 
and DOE programs are addressing all these issues.
  We are searching for a permanent repository. S. 1936 will not advance 
that effort but will clearly set it back. But that is what the powerful 
lobby wants to do. They do not want to advance it. We will have safe 
storage with reactor sites for decades to come. We have no crisis. 
There will be only positive consequences of defeating this 
legislation--mainly, to allow us to continue the effort to find a 
permanent repository.
  Mr. President, the one thing that is very, very clear and has not 
been addressed today, even though we have raised the issue not once, 
not twice, but numerous times, is that a report to Congress from the 
Secretary of Energy on March 20 of this year by the Nuclear Waste 
Technical Review Board said that there is no reason to move nuclear 
waste from where it now exists. Scientists said this. We have not heard 
a proponent of S. 1936 tell us why these scientists are wrong.
  Supporters of S. 1936 continue to ask what the alternative is to 
1936. ``If not S. 1936, then what?'' ``What does the President and what 
do the opponents of S. 1936 propose?'' That is what they have said 
today on several occasions.
  The answer is very simple: Stay the course, the current law.
  I have not always agreed with the course, but let us at least have 
some scientific bearing. We have a program that is addressing our long-
term nuclear waste needs. We have a program that is addressing our 
immediate nuclear waste needs. Under current law we are able to 
implement the DOE's program plan, and it will give us an assessment of 
the suitability of Yucca Mountain by 1998. That is very soon.

  What else do we need? Nothing new and certainly nothing now. 
Certainly not S. 1936 which would end the search for a permanent 
repository. But these fancy executives who are writing the letters, who 
are going to Chambers of Commerce and, quite frankly, being deceptive 
in what they say to the chambers and other responsible organizations, 
are being deceptive because they go and they say, ``Our cooling ponds 
are full. Don't you agree that the only thing is to move it?"
  What they fail to tell them is that the scientists disagree. The 
scientists say leave it where it is until we get a determination as to 
the permanent repository.
  S. 1936 is not a solution to anything. S. 1936 is the problem. It is 
not the solution. The fact that the current program has not completed 
its work and has not moved as quickly as the powerful executives want 
and that we do not

[[Page S7877]]

know the ultimate end point of this research does not mean we have to 
change course at this time. Independent reviews support this position. 
The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, I repeat, says keep the 
present course. We need not do anything more than we currently have for 
many years. There is no crisis. There is no need for new regulation.
  We have heard referred to on a number of occasions today what the 
Washington Post said. The Washington Post is a newspaper that we in 
Washington read on occasion. I misplaced my copy. I appreciate a copy 
being handed to me. It is on every desk in the Chamber. The Post said 
today, among other things, in one sentence that sums up this whole 
debate:

       This is too important a decision to be jammed through the 
     latter part of Congress on the strength of the industry's 
     fabricated claim that it faces an emergency.

  This, Mr. President, is not a statement made by the Senator from 
Nevada but a statement made by the editorial board of one of the 
largest, most prominent newspapers in the United States. There is no 
crisis.
  We have also heard people say that S. 1936 does address the problems 
of S. 1271, its predecessor bill. Not true. They claim that the 
deficiencies in S. 1271 have been corrected in S. 1936. They 
acknowledge that there were problems with S. 1271 and they have taken 
care of them. Not true.
  My colleague spoke at some length about why that is a fabrication. 
There is new window dressing. A new paint has been put on the same old 
wreck of a house but under the paint you still have the very old wood 
that will not last long. Substantive changes simply have not been made. 
S. 1936 still preempts all State and local laws and essentially all 
Federal laws. S. 1936 undermines the objectivity of the scientific 
research at Yucca Mountain. The criticisms by the President of the 
United States of S. 1936 are just as valid as his criticisms of S. 
1271. There have been no substantive changes. That is why the President 
last night through his Chief of Staff did not sign a letter to the 
minority leader outlining his objections to this disastrous law, S. 
1936, until it was thoroughly reviewed by the entire staff the White 
House.
  You do not have to take my word. You can just read the bill. For 
example, take page 73 of this bill entitled ``General and Miscellaneous 
Provisions,'' and its subheading is ``Section 501, Compliance with 
Other Laws.''

       If the requirements of any law are inconsistent with or 
     duplicative of the requirements of * * * this act, the 
     Secretary shall comply only with the requirements of the * * 
     * act in implementing the integrated management system. Any 
     requirement of a State or political subdivision of a State is 
     preempted if--

  And it outlines the ifs; not very broad except it just emasculates 
every environmental law we have passed within the last 25 years:

       Complying with such requirement and a requirement of this 
     act is impossible; or--

  Listen to this dandy:

       Such requirement, as applied or enforced, is an obstacle to 
     * * * this act * * *

  I do not know what an obstacle is, but it does not take much.
  One of the things that we have not talked about that we should be 
talking about, Mr. President, is the NRC, Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, certification requirements for spent fuel transportation. 
And what I want to talk about there is that the certification 
requirements for spent fuel transportation containers certainly are not 
insurance against the consequences of a remote accident. And I might 
add, they are certainly not insurance against any act, but the 
consequences of an accident will not observe the boundaries of where 
the accident occurs. Just because the accident might be remote is no 
basis for comfort. And we know, we have described where the railroads 
and the highways go. Fifty million people live within a mile of the 
highways and railroads.
  Radioactive waste will burn and disburse many tens of thousands of 
miles before deposition and contamination of far distant territory 
takes place. We know by looking at what happened at Chernobyl, Olga 
Korbut, the great Olympian I talked about earlier today, who lived 100 
miles from Chernobyl, is dying of her disease that came about as a 
result of this nuclear accident. Are we going to warn this at-risk 
population, this 50 million people along the transportation route, are 
we going to warn them to stay tuned to some emergency frequency just in 
case something unexpected happens? Chernobyl never happened until it 
happened. Now we are concerned of other Chernobyls. And if we do that, 
that is, warn the at-risk population to stay tuned, what are we going 
to tell them if an accident does happen? Who will help? When will they 
help? Who will be liable?
  The term ``mobile Chernobyl'' has been coined for this legislation. A 
trainload of waste may not contain the potential for disaster that 
Chernobyl did, but the result will be little different for those 
affected by the inevitable accident. I submit that we are not prepared 
to implement the transportation of this hazardous material--not today, 
not tomorrow. The risk is real, and we are responsible for ensuring 
readiness and preparation to reduce it to minimal levels of both 
probability and consequence. It does not make sense to double that risk 
by premature and unnecessary transportation to an interim storage site 
that has not been determined to be the final site where these materials 
are to be disposed.
  Terrorism, vandalism and protests. Unforeseeable accidents, even of 
small likelihood, are intolerable in the absence of responsible 
capability to respond to these accidents. Accidents are only one kind 
of a problem we must be able to deal with. We must be capable of 
dealing with accidents, but it is only one of the problems that 
develop. Much has been spoken recently of America's vulnerability to 
both domestic and foreign attacks. It really saddens me to agree that 
some of America's enemies today are American citizens. Misguided as 
they may be, enemies they certainly are. Vipers in Arizona--we have on 
film their little escapades, blowing up things. We had someone who was 
able to infiltrate that group, who heard the statements they made: 
Anybody who talks against them to authority, we will kill them. But 
that is only one of many.

  The trade center in New York blown asunder, Oklahoma City--we can go 
all over the country and find these acts of terrorism that have taken 
place. But we certainly must look at our own States: Reno, Bureau of 
Land Management, roof blown off; IRS building, the bomb which was a 
dud; Carson City, Forest Service wall blown off; part of a Forest 
Ranger's home blown up.
  So we know they are out there. There are known enemies of America and 
the values it promotes and stands for. Because of our constitutional 
rights, which are our national heritage, we cannot deny our enemies 
many of the same freedoms we ourselves enjoy.
  Mr. President, I see the leader on the floor. I will be happy, at 
such time as he wants me to desist for whatever he might want to do--I 
will be happy to do that. All he has to do is give me the word.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if the distinguished Senator is at a point 
where it would be appropriate?
  Mr. REID. Certainly.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, we are in the process, now, of working with 
both sides to see if we cannot come up with a further agreement with 
regard to how we would handle the nuclear waste issue. We do have some 
agreements that have been worked out on the Executive Calendar and on a 
couple of bills. I would like to go ahead and get those done. These 
have been cleared with the Democratic leadership. Then, as soon as we 
get this other agreement finally worked out, we will take that up.

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