[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 104 (Tuesday, July 16, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7914-S7916]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY ACT OF 1996--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the motion to proceed.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, what I was talking about when the majority 
leader came upon the floor--and I will also indicate that at such time 
as he or his representative returns for other unanimous consent 
requests, I will be happy to yield the floor at that time--Mr. 
President, in our open society, which is our national heritage and the 
essence of America, we cannot deny our enemies many of the same 
freedoms we ourselves enjoy. There are, as well, many foreign 
interests, some secret, that will want to promote and publicize their 
existence and goals through outrageous acts of blatant terrorism and 
destruction. We know this is happening. Indiscriminate killing of women 
and children is enough to tear at your heart strings.
  What better stage could be set for these enemies than a trainload or 
a

[[Page S7915]]

truckload of the most hazardous material known to man, clearly and 
predictably moving through our free and open society.
  Think of the train wreck that occurred in a remote area of Arizona. A 
man went there--they think they know who it is, but there has been no 
arrest made--and put something on the track to cause the train to go 
off the track. The train went head over heels, killing people, causing 
all kinds of damage to the load that was on the train.
  Mr. President, this happens all over the country, and with nuclear 
waste being carried, certainly I think there will have to be some way 
to identify the nuclear waste. We face a fraction of risk every day in 
our cities, our airports and around our centers of local and State 
governments, but the opportunity to inflict widespread contamination, 
to engender real health risks to millions of Americans, to encumber our 
Treasury in hundreds of millions of dollars of cleanup costs, maybe 
billions, to further reduce the confidence of all Americans in our 
treasured freedoms will be irresistible to our enemies.
  If Chernobyl happened in the United States, what would we have spent 
to clean up that mess? We must prepare for such realities that 
accompany the massive campaign to consolidate waste at a repository 
site. We are not yet ready, and this is a fact.
  An example is, in Nevada earlier this year, there was an evaluation 
of emergency response capabilities along the potential WIPP waste 
routes in Nevada. This was prepared for the Western Governors 
Conference, and they clearly said that emergency plans in most areas 
lack radiological response sections or are vague. They certainly 
require updates.
  The general lack of radiological training in outlying areas is a 
major issue affecting the capability for response of these transuranic 
waste incidents. There are few alpha radiation detection instruments 
available. It appears that notification procedures for radiological 
incidents are not well understood.
  They concluded, among other things, that out of 60 departments 
surveyed, only 16 had emergency responder capabilities. Most of the 
responder departments surveyed cited weather, isolated roads, sheer 
distance, and open range with game animals as factors affecting 
emergency response in these areas. Only 16 of the 60 departments stated 
they felt equipped for a radiological incident. The remainder cited a 
need for training, protective clothing, and calibrated detection 
equipment, among other things.

  This is the way it is all over America. I think probably, Mr. 
President, in Nevada, because we have been exposed to new things 
nuclear with the above-ground testing, the underground testing, the 
other things that go on at the test site, we are probably better 
prepared than most places, but this independent review by the Western 
Governors Conference said even Nevada is terribly inadequately 
prepared, and that must be the way it is all over the train routes and 
highways over which this dangerous substance would be carried.
  I have already mentioned the growing danger in this country from both 
domestic and international terrorism. I described the irresistible 
target that tons and tons of high-level radioactive waste and spent 
fuel provide. This dangerous material would be shipped in lots of tens 
of tons to hundreds of tons in trucks on our highways, in rail cars on 
our railway system.
  The material would be contained in substantial canisters that are 
resistant to some physical damage and some leakage. Just how survivable 
these canisters are to accident is questionable. But, Mr. President, we 
know that if the truck is not going very fast or the train is not going 
very fast, you are probably OK. If a fire occurs and does not last very 
long, not too hot, you are probably OK. But if those things do not 
occur, we have some problems.
  So just how survivable these canisters are to both accident and 
potential assault is terribly important to our environment, our safety, 
our health, our lives, and our budgets. The canister's survivability is 
critical to all these things, because an accident or potential breach 
of these containers could lead to contamination of hundreds of square 
miles of rural, suburban, or urban areas.
  That contamination would be, by some, the most dangerous that has 
ever occurred. Exposure could lead to immediate sickness and early 
death from acute exposure, and for less than acute exposure to years of 
anxiety and uncertainty as exposed populations would look for the first 
signs of the onset of cancer of the thyroid, of bone cancer, leukemia, 
liver, kidney, and other cancers.
  We, in Nevada, have had firsthand experience with this kind of risk 
and its effect on the people of Nevada and on our regional development 
and economic options.
  Mr. President, as young boys, well over 100 miles from where the 
bombs were set off, we would get up early in the morning in the dark 
skies of the desert and wait for the blast. The first thing we would 
see was the light, this orange ball we could see, and then sometimes we 
felt and heard the sound. Sound, though, bounces along. Sometimes the 
sound would bounce over us, and we would not hear the sound.
  But, Mr. President, I was one of the lucky ones, because when these 
above-ground shots were fired, the winds did not blow toward 
Searchlight, NV. They blew toward Lincoln County. The winds blew toward 
southern Utah where these areas have the highest rate of cancer 
anyplace in the United States. These were known as downwinders. The 
problems were so bad that we had to pass a law here--Senator Hatch and 
I worked on that for a long time--to provide moneys for the damages 
that the Federal Government inflicted on these people.

  So we have firsthand experience with this kind of risk and its effect 
on our people and regional development and even our economic options. 
It is paramount, not only to Nevada but to the whole country, that if 
and when we move this dangerous material, that we do it absolutely 
right, we do it the right way and that we do it absolutely right not 
the second time but the first time.
  I have already spoken about the state of readiness to respond to 
emergencies anywhere anytime along the transportation routes proposed 
for this massive program of spent-fuel transportation, and it is quite 
clear--it is quite clear--that we have some problems along these 
transportation routes.
  Mr. President, we are not ready yet to respond effectively to an 
accident or an incident were it to happen. Nevada has just completed a 
comprehensive assessment of its capacity to respond, and I have 
explained, sadly, that that assessment found the State of Nevada less 
than ready.
  Sponsors of this bill have said, and I will say again, that the 
canisters will survive any kind of conceivable accident so that 
emergency preparedness, or lack thereof, is irrelevant. We have 
explained today on several occasions how these canisters will not 
survive a fire that is hot that lasts for more than 30 minutes. We have 
explained how the canisters are in trouble if you have an accident with 
a speed of over 30 miles an hour.
  But let's also talk about terrorists. That is what we are doing here. 
I say, Mr. President, that I do not agree, because the requirements for 
certification of canisters will meet the stresses experienced in very 
common scenarios, that these canisters will survive being exposed to 
other types of incidents and accidents and terrorist activities.
  Should the containers be manufactured to meet the performance 
standards claimed by the bill's sponsors--even if that were the case, 
which it is not--they would not survive the effects of a determined 
attack by terrorists. The sponsors claim, maybe, because they are privy 
to the same information we are--some tests had been performed some 
years ago that showed little or no leakage as a consequence of a 
terrorist attack on these canisters.
  These tests were performed, but they were fatally flawed by the 
choice of weapon allowed by the so-called experimental terrorists.
  The weapon used to test the canister's response was a device designed 
to destroy reinforced concrete pillars, piers, bridges, wharfs, and 
other structures. The weapon was not designed to attack structures like 
a nuclear waste canister. In fact, the weapon used for the testing 
performed its military mission so poorly that our military forces

[[Page S7916]]

have abandoned these weapons for a better desire. The tests that were 
done resulted in perforation of the canister, but the experimenter said 
the hole was so small that there was very little leakage.
  Mr. President, the whole country has seen on TV, as a result of what 
we saw in the gulf war, the effects of modern weapons on enemy 
vehicles, especially tanks. These targets have many things in common 
with nuclear waste transportation containers. They have a substantial 
thickness of steel with intervening layers of different materials just 
like a tank. The effects of these modern weapons astonished even 
military professionals who marveled at the energy release and the 
damage inflicted on armored vehicles designed to survive environments 
of more stress than the benign accident requirement required by the 
NRC.
  Let me remind us all of the images from Desert Storm. We can recall 
in our mind's eye, Mr. President, the sight of a 100-ton-tank turret 
spinning wildly up, landing more than 100 yards from the targeted tank.
  Mr. President, this is the kind of attack we must be prepared for 
because these shipments will be irresistible targets to determined 
terrorists. They may do more than fix the train tracks out in remote 
rural Arizona that causes the train to go out into the desert. They may 
fire one of these weapons. Terrorists do have access to these weapons. 
These weapons will do, to waste containers, the same damage they do to 
enemy vehicles, including tanks. They will perforate, rupture, disburse 
the contents and burn the waste in these containers. They will cause a 
massive radioactive incident.
  We have not invested in the transportation planning and the 
preparations that are absolutely necessary for the safe transportation 
of these dangerous materials through our heartland. We have not 
addressed the spectrum of threats to its safe transportation and have 
not developed a transportation process that guards against these 
threats. We are not ready to meet the emergencies that could develop 
because of accident or terrorism.
  Mr. President, this bill is unnecessary. It is going to be vetoed by 
the President. We are going to sustain the veto if it carries that far. 
It is absolutely unnecessary. We know the nuclear waste can be stored 
on-site where it is now located. We know this because of eminent 
scientists that have told us so from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review 
Board.
  I close, Mr. President, by saying that, as from the newspaper this 
morning, ``This is too important a decision to be jammed through the 
latter part of a Congress on the strength of the industry's fabricated 
claim it faces an emergency.'' These, Mr. President, are not my words. 
They are the words of the editorial department from the Washington 
Post.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Nevada yield the floor?
  Mr. REID. I yield the floor.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on this side 
relative to the business of the Senate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska has 8 minutes.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I wonder if I could interrupt the majority leader at 
this time to determine whether he wants to propose a unanimous-consent 
agreement. I reserve the balance of my time and will seek recognition 
after that, Mr. President.
  Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I want to thank the distinguished Senator 
from Alaska for the good work he has been doing and for his cooperation 
in getting this unanimous-consent agreement. I did just have an 
opportunity to check it further with the Democratic leader. I think 
this is a fair agreement and will help move things along, not only on 
nuclear waste, but on the Department of Defense appropriations bill and 
hopefully even other issues.

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