[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 39 (Monday, April 7, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2766-S2779]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY ACT AMENDMENTS--MOTION TO PROCEED
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the motion to proceed.
The Senate resumed consideration of the motion to proceed.
Mr. MURKOWSKI addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote
on the motion to invoke cloture on Senate bill 104, the Nuclear Waste
Act, occur at 5:15 on Tuesday, with the time between 2:15 and 5:15
equally divided between the proponents and opponents.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I wish the occupant
of the chair a good afternoon.
The Senate proceeded to consider the motion to proceed.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I am going to be speaking this
afternoon at some length on Senate bill 104. This is a bill that
provides a comprehensive plan for the Federal Government to meet its
obligations to provide a safe place to store spent nuclear fuel and
nuclear waste.
Mr. President, I think it is important to reflect on some of the
background associated with nuclear waste and the status of our
continued dependence on nuclear energy.
First of all, let me refer to an article by Bertram Wolfe. Mr. Wolfe
is a consultant at Monte Sereno, CA, and a former president of the
American Nuclear Society. He suggests that by midcentury, the Third
World population on this Earth will double from 4 billion to 8 billion
people while the population of the industrial world will grow by about
20 percent, to 1.2 billion. He further suggests that unless we expect
to see the majority of the world's people living indefinitely in dire
poverty, we should be prepared for per capita energy use to rise
rapidly with economic progress. Even if the Third World per capita
energy use rises to only one-third of the United States level, that
increase, in combination with the expected population growth, will
result in a threefold increase in world energy use by the year 2050.
He further suggests that if fossil fuels are used to supply these
increased energy needs, we can expect serious deterioration of air
quality and possibly environmental disaster from global climate change
due to the greenhouse effect. In addition, increased demand for fossil
fuels, combined with the dwindling supply, undoubtedly will lead to
higher prices, slower economic growth, and the likelihood of energy-
related global conflicts.
I wonder if anyone in this Chamber would doubt that Kuwait's oil
resources were a major factor in the United States willingness to take
military action against Iraq. Unfortunately, alternatives to this
scenario are few. Perhaps the future world energy use can be stabilized
at a level much less than a third of present U.S. per capita use. Of
course, that demand could be much higher. Perhaps solar or wind power
will become practical on a larger scale. Perhaps fusion, or even cold
fusion, will be developed. But as we enter the world's energy needs in
the 21st century, we have to focus on one area that currently provides
us with nearly 21 percent of our electricity in the United States, and
that is nuclear power. Even conventional nuclear powerplants will face
fuel supply problems in the next century if their use expands
significantly, which is why we ought to consider the use of the
advanced liquid metal reactor which can produce more than 100 times as
much energy per pound of uranium as conventional reactors.
[[Page S2767]]
The United States, as we know, has been a leader in the development
of nuclear power technology and in the adoption of stringent safety
standards. It is important to note that not a single member of the
public has been harmed by the operation of any of the world's nuclear
plants that meet U.S. standards. The Chernobyl reactor, which lacked a
containment structure, did not meet U.S. standards.
But the future of nuclear energy in the United States is now very
much in question. Since 1973, all nuclear energy plant orders
have subsequently been canceled. In 1993, U.S. utilities shut down
three nuclear energy plants rather than invest in needed repairs. Of
the 110 presently operating U.S. nuclear energy plants, 45 will reach
the end of their planned 40-year lifetime in the next two decades.
Mr. President, this is the wrong time for the Nation, and for the
world, for that matter, to ignore nuclear power. Demand for energy will
grow. Our options are limited. Ironically, environmentalists who have
opposed nuclear power since the 1970's should have the strongest
rationale for promoting nuclear energy. Like all large endeavors,
nuclear power has its problems and it has its risks. But the problems
of nuclear power do not look so bad when compared with air pollution,
global warming, and the supply limitations associated with fossil
fuels. Besides, the major drawbacks of nuclear power from cost to waste
disposal are due more to institutional impediments than to
technological difficulties. Considering the growth in energy demand and
the risks associated with other energy sources, the benefit-risk ratio
for nuclear power is very attractive.
We recall that peaceful nuclear power development started slowly in
the 1950's. But by the mid to late 1960's, commercial nuclear
powerplant orders began to take off. And by the 1970's, 30 to 40
nuclear plants were being ordered each year. This outlook resulted from
several factors. The first was that electric use was growing at a rate
of about 7 percent per year, leading to a need for doubling of electric
capacity every 10 years.
Responding to some very negative public reactions to his company and
the company's announcement that it would be starting up a new coal-
fired plant in 1961, McChesney Martin, chairman of Florida Power and
Light, promised never to build another coal plant. Shortly thereafter,
Florida Power and Light submitted a plan to build a nuclear station in
the mid-1960's.
Mr. President, the Sierra Club became the major supporter of the
Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California. This period of rapid nuclear
expansion and environmental support of nuclear power ended in 1973
after the Arab oil embargo and the boycott. As a consequence of that,
the rate of growth fell dramatically. As the years went by and the
costs of crude oil continued to increase, we found a change in
attitude. The surplus of oil distorted the Nation's perspective on
energy in general and nuclear energy in particular.
A number of environmental organizations, such as Greenpeace and the
Sierra Club, insisted that the Nation should hold out for ideal or
risk-free sources, such as energy conservation, solar power, and wind
energy. No one suffered from a shortage of electricity as the
construction time for nuclear powerplants expanded a full 6 years--to
10 or 15 years, or even longer. These extended construction times have
been ascribed to an even more complicated and inefficient regulatory
system, and court delays resulting from suits brought by those opposed
to nuclear power. In Japan and France, for example, where demand for
electric energy continued to grow rapidly, new nuclear energy plants of
U.S. design are today still being licensed and built in 4 to 6 years.
First, I personally would question whether Congress would have
tolerated the delays if the new electricity were truly needed. One of
the results of the delays, however, was that the cost of building a
nuclear plant in the United States increased dramatically, making
nuclear power uncompetitive and unattractive to many investors. But
let's look at the benefits.
Although the rate of growth of electricity use declined after 1973,
demand increased, as the economy expanded, to U.S. electric use,
increasing 70 percent between 1973 and 1994. Coal generation doubled
between 1973 and 1994, and today coal provides over 50 percent of U.S.
electricity. The 74 nuclear energy plants that came on line in this
period increased the nuclear share of electric generation from 4
percent in 1973 to more than 20 percent today, second only to coal.
The other sources, for the benefit of the Members, are natural gas at
4 percent, hydropower at 9 percent, wood, wind, and solar 3 percent,
and oil 3 percent.
The added nuclear capacity allowed for the shutdown of oil-fired
plants and permitted the utilities to reduce oil imports by some 100
million barrels per year. The substitution of nuclear or fossil fuel
plants has reduced the present CO2 atmospheric emissions by
140 million metric tons of carbon per year--roughly 10 percent of the
total U.S. CO2 production. Nevertheless, the United States
still needs to reduce carbon production by an additional 10 percent to
reach its goal of returning to the 1990 production level. In addition,
replacement of fossil fuel plants with nuclear power has reduced nitric
oxide emissions to the air by over 2 million tons annually, meeting the
goal set by the Clean Air Act for the year 2000, and has reduced sulfur
dioxide emissions by almost 5 million tons per year, half the goal for
the year 2000.
The dilemma that we are in is a real one, because we are not able to
store our waste that has accumulated as a consequence of our nuclear
powerplants. As a consequence of that, we have not been able to move
from a temporary storage to a safe, permanent storage. We have the
temporary storage in the areas, in the pools, next to our reactors.
But, as a consequence of that, we seem to face the situation where
environmental Neros fiddle while Rome burns. The current generation of
U.S. nuclear powerplants has performed remarkably well and an even
better generation of new designs is ready. General Electric, in a
partnership with Hitachi and Toshiba, has developed the advanced
boiling water reactor. Construction of this reactor began in Japan in
1991, and the plant is already operating at full power. The ability to
build and begin operation of a new design in less than 5 years is a
testament to the quality of the firms that stand behind this.
Experience with the U.S. licensing and court review procedures
suggest that today it can take 2 to 4 times as long to construct a
nuclear plant in the United States as it does abroad, with the
exorbitant cost increases.
Mr. President, this brings me to the point in the debate where I
think it is appropriate to reflect on history. I am referring to an
article that appeared in Scientific American in July 1976.
Mr. President, let me just read an excerpt from that particular
article, because I think it reflects on something that has been
overlooked. That is the natural element of nuclear fission as we know
it today.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, will my friend yield for a unanimous-consent
request that will just take a second? I just want to get staff in here,
is all.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Sure.
Privilege Of The Floor
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Bob Perret, a
professional fellow, be granted the privilege of the floor during the
pendency of this bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I think it will be of interest for my
colleagues to note that a high level radioactive waste experiment
occurred some 1.8 million years ago in west Africa, in what is now the
nation of Gabon, at a place called Oklo. The French were prospecting in
their former colony for uranium for their developing nuclear program.
Some 2 billion years ago, all the uranium on Earth contained some 3 to
4 percent uranium 235, and the rest is the normal level of uranium 238.
But, because of natural radiation decay, all U-238 today contains only
about 0.7 percent of U-235. U-235 is fissionable, and at about 3
percent enrichment can sustain a chain reaction. That means it can
undergo fission. That is just what happened to the uranium in Oklo,
approximately 1.8 million years ago. Some water seeped into the vein
and began a slow chain reaction which continued for some several
hundred thousand years, generating some 10 tons of radioactive waste,
including almost a
[[Page S2768]]
ton of plutonium. The reactor became dormant and scientists have now
measured all the minerals at that site and they have shown that all the
plutonium created at the site has decayed and that all the original
radiation decay products of fission were recovered, close to the
original natural fission reactor. This, altogether, released only a few
feet from the surface.
It is interesting to note the plutonium did not migrate away, even
though there were no engineered barriers to prevent transport of the
waste product. This natural experiment shows that it is difficult, if
not impossible, for such waste to enter the biosphere. It clearly
demonstrates that geological repositories can successfully isolate
radioactive waste from the biosphere. There is nothing unique about the
geology of Oklo. That occurred, as I have indicated, some 1.8 million
years ago.
As we enter the debate on a comprehensive plan for the Federal
Government to meet its obligation to provide a safe place to store
spent nuclear waste and nuclear fuel, I think it is important to refer
to the historical natural occurrence that took place in Africa some 1.8
million years ago because it represents a phenomenon, if you will, that
shows, indeed, a natural experimentation that resulted in no
unfavorable outfall associated with the process.
Getting back to where we are today, our Government entered into a
contractual commitment to take the waste generated from our nuclear
powerplants and provide a safe storage and disposition of that waste.
That was some years ago. That contract is now due, for the Government
to initiate performance, in 1998. As a consequence of the recognition
of the inability of the Government to take that waste, on March 13 my
committee on Energy and Natural Resources reported Senate bill S. 104
on a bipartisan vote of 15 to 5.
As you will recall, last year a similar bill passed the Senate by a
bipartisan vote of 63 to 37. The bill would provide one safe, central,
temporary storage site at the Nevada test site or, if the Nevada test
site is found to be inadequate, another chosen by the President. At the
same time, S. 104 reaffirms our Nation's commitment to development of a
permanent repository for nuclear waste. Why the Nevada site? We have
been conducting nuclear detonations related to the weapons testing
program in the Nevada desert for some 50 years. One can fairly conclude
that the area has radioactivity. The area has been, time and time
again, subject to underground explosions of various types. The area is
well established with an adequate security capability and an
experienced work force.
Furthermore, when we get right down to this issue, we have to come to
the conclusion that nobody wants the waste--not one of the 50 States.
But clearly the experience in Nevada at the test site suggests that it
is the best site that has been examined so far, and as a consequence we
are committed to proceed with the effort to establish a permanent
repository there.
What S. 104 further attempts to do is to reaffirm our Nation's
commitment to development of a permanent repository for nuclear waste,
which is our ongoing objective. Over the past several weeks I have
worked with many of my colleagues, notably Senator Bingaman from New
Mexico, to address concerns that he has with the bill and other
concerns. As a result of these discussions, I am prepared to offer an
amendment that makes significant changes to S. 104.
Let me comment a little further on this bill, because while this bill
was resolved with a tremendous amount of work by the staff, what it
really is is an effort to meet our obligation to take our nuclear waste
in a timely manner and reduce the associated liability that is going to
come from suits brought to the Federal Government for nonperformance of
the contract. If someone has a better idea for this bill, or a better
proposal to address the problem now, why, this Senator is certainly
willing to listen and very likely accommodate it.
But let me explain the amendment. The amendment, first of all,
extends the schedule for siting and licensing an interim facility,
specifically siting and licensing an interim facility. This means we
can start the process that we have had underway for a long, long time.
Further, this allows even more time for the progress at Yucca Mountain
to be taken into account in siting the interim facility. It would
provide that the interim facility will be licensed by existing NRC
regulations with no exceptions. It shortens the licensing term of the
interim facility to 40 years, so it puts a limit on how long it can be
used, and provides that its capacity will only be that needed to
fulfill the Government's obligation until a permanent repository is
available. And it preempts only State laws that are inconsistent with
the provisions of the act. This language is virtually identical to that
in the Hazardous Waste Materials Transportation Act.
These changes are significant, but do not harm the ability to reach
the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is safe, central storage; safe,
central storage of our Nation's spent nuclear fuels and waste. High
level nuclear waste and highly radioactive used nuclear fuel is, today,
continuing to pile up. It is piling up in 41 States at some 80 sites,
and it is stored in areas that are populated; near neighborhoods, areas
where schools are not too far away--you might say in the back yards of
people across America. One example that comes to mind is the Palisades
plant in Michigan, which is within 100 feet of Lake Michigan. Another
is the Haddam Neck plant in Connecticut. My colleague from that State
has observed that he can see the plant from his home.
I refer to an editorial from the Hartford Courant that observes,
``With the closing of the Connecticut Yankee plant at Haddam Neck, the
issue of what to do with the State's high level nuclear waste has moved
from the theoretical to the here and now. Experts say that Connecticut
Yankee spent fuel could be stored at Haddam Neck for another 30 years,
``another 30 years, Mr. President'' if Congress fails to approve a
temporary facility. Unfortunately, the hands of the clock cannot be
turned back to a time when nuclear waste didn't exist. In terms of its
disposal, a remote desert site in Nevada is simply the lesser of two
evils.''
(Mr. ENZI assumed the chair.)
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, the waste was supposed to have been
taken by the Federal Government for safe, central storage by, as I said
earlier, 1998. Will that happen, Mr. President? The answer is clearly
no. No, because we have not addressed the problem; we simply put it
off.
Even though this $12 billion collection from American ratepayers to
pay for this storage has gone into the Federal coffers, and even though
a Federal court has reaffirmed that the Government has a legal
obligation to take the waste by 1998, still, today, there is no plan
for action.
By 1998, 23 reactors in 14 States are going to be full. What are we
going to do then? Are we going to shift over to some other power? We
are going to have to do something.
By the year 2010, 65 reactors in 29 States will be full. What are we
going to do then?
The conservative estimate is that 25 percent of our nuclear plants
will not be able to build onsite storage and will be forced to shut
down. That would mean the loss of over 5 percent of our Nation's
electric generating capacity. When is Yucca Mountain going to be ready
for a permanent repository? Not until at least the year 2015. What do
we do in the meantime? Simply leave it there? Let the litigation mount
up for our inability to honor a contractual commitment? How good is a
Government contract if the Government can simply ignore it? Therefore,
in the mind of this Senator, what this Nation needs and what S. 104 is
all about is a temporary solution.
When S. 104 passed the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, it
passed with a solid bipartisan vote of 15 to 5. Almost half of the
members and all majority members voted in favor of the bill. Americans
have waited too long for a solution to this environmental and public
safety challenge, and there is absolutely no purpose to be served by
waiting any longer.
I am, of course, sensitive to the concerns of my colleagues from
Nevada, but this is a legacy of our generation, and we have an
obligation to address that legacy. To put it off to somebody else's
watch, another Presidential administration, simply puts off a
responsibility and an obligation that we have.
[[Page S2769]]
We have an obligation to act, and to act in a timely manner, because
we are going to be in breach of our contract next year. So there is a
critical need to construct a safe, central storage facility to
eliminate the growing threat to the environment and to the American
people.
As I said earlier, I worked with Members on both sides of the aisle
to attempt to solve the problems that they have with this bill. In the
markup, we accepted several amendments from the Democratic side, and I
am ready to work with other Senators on amendments they may have to
improve the bill, because our goal is a responsible one. It is safe,
central storage as soon as reasonably possible after 1998. We have
offered, time and time again, to work with the new Secretary of Energy,
Secretary Pena, and the staff at the Energy Department. During his
confirmation, we pressed the White House to ensure that the Secretary
has the portfolio to respond to this pressing problem, and they
indicated that he did have that portfolio.
Over the recess, the committee staff has worked on a proposed
compromise. Senator Bingaman's staff has been very constructive in this
regard. Much of what Senator Bingaman has proposed appears acceptable.
However, the bottom line is the need for a predictable path, with
certainty, to interim and permanent waste storage. We simply cannot
leave trap doors that allow central storage to be delayed for decades.
I want to refer to a chart to identify just what we are talking about
relative to spent fuel and radioactive waste that is destined for
geologic disposal. This chart on my right shows the United States, and
for some reason or another they left Hawaii and Alaska off, but that is
not uncommon around here. The brown areas show commercial reactors, and
they are primarily in the Midwest--Illinois, Minnesota--and on the
eastern seaboard. Those are some 80 sites where we are generating
nuclear power at the present time.
One of the things we have to keep in mind is, unless we find a way to
take care of this waste--we are still going to have reactors, some of
which have already shut down and have spent fuel in onsite storage--we
will simply be storing spent fuel in shutdown reactors. Currently, we
have, designated by the blue little pyramids, a number of shutdown
reactors in Oregon, California, and a few in the Midwest.
The next little block we have are the commercial spent nuclear fuel
storage facilities. We have fewer of those. We have a couple of them in
the Midwest. We have non-Department of Energy research reactors
scattered all throughout the country, in blue. We have naval reactor
fuel in Idaho, Washington, New Mexico, Georgia, and we have the
Department of Energy spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. I
could go on and on with a description of this chart.
One can quickly recognize that we have nuclear waste all over the
country, and I am sure those in opposition to this bill will suggest
that the best thing we can do is simply leave it there. I do not know,
Mr. President, if that makes sense to you. It does not to me. Do we
want this scattered all over the country when it simply makes sense to
put it in one area where we have had testing for some 50 years, where
we have an experienced work force, a security capability and the
knowledge that we are proceeding with a permanent repository in that
area of Yucca Mountain in Nevada?
The fact is, as we proceed with Yucca Mountain in Nevada and the
realization that might be completed by the year 2015, or thereabouts,
the question is, why not move it, move it now, transport it now to a
interim repository adjacent to the permanent site?
Then one might say, ``What happens if the permanent site does not
become suitable?'' Let me tell you a couple things about that permanent
site, Mr. President. We have expended some $6 billion so far. It is
estimated to cost some $30 billion by the time it is completed. So we
are well on our way, assuming it is licensable and assuming that it
receives the certification necessary.
So you are going to hear the argument, if you move it out there and
it is not suitable, then what are you going to do? Then you obviously
are going to have to find someplace else to take it, and that is not
going to be easy. By the same token, it has to go somewhere. There are
48 States on that map. It has to go somewhere.
We have another chart that I want to bring up which shows what S. 104
is all about. If we look over at the lower left-hand corner, we find
that in 1998, if we accept the status quo, we have 81 sites in 40
States. If we look over at the red arrow and find that Yucca Mountain
is viable for a permanent repository, then we have achieved our
objective, we have one safe, central storage site.
What are we going to do if Yucca Mountain is not viable for a
permanent repository? We are going to address our obligation. We are
going to take that blue arrow right up to the top, and if Yucca
Mountain is not a viable site for a permanent repository, then it
requires the President to pick an alternate site. If the President
refuses, we are not going to let the President off the hook. The
President still has an obligation. If the President does not select an
alternate site, the site defaults back to the Nevada test site. If the
President picks an alternate site and Congress ratifies the site, then
we have one safe, central storage site.
The point of this chart is to show where we are trying to go with
this bill, which is to address our responsibility and resolve this
situation. This Senator, the chairman of this committee, is not going
to accept amendments that penetrate the objective of this legislation,
which is to address it and resolve it and do it now. So we have
alternatives framed in this debate.
The alternatives are a little more complicated, but we have the
status quo, 81 sites in 40 States. That is a given. The red line says
Yucca Mountain is viable for a permanent repository. If that is fine,
we have one safe, central storage site. If the license application for
Yucca Mountain is not filed, then we go back, if you will, and take the
blue line--Yucca Mountain is not viable for a permanent repository--the
Secretary picks an alternative storage site. If no site is chosen, it
goes back to one central storage site.
So what we have attempted to do here is address concerns of Members
and still get the job done, because if we do not get the job done, we
are going to waste several hours in debate and find ourselves not
addressing the obligation we have to take this waste under the
contractual commitment that we have.
I am willing to be flexible in the shape of either one of these
boxes, but the result must always be the same. We now have an
opportunity for bipartisan action, and I think that we must seize that
opportunity. I know that my friends from Nevada will object to the
bill. They consider it probably a political necessity to oppose it. I
can understand that. If it were not for Nevada, I am sure it might be
Vermont where they have a lot of marble, or it might be Montana, where
they have a lot of rock. The point is it has to go somewhere.
There are going to be allegations that there is some bad science
here. There are going to be efforts to try to scare us with references
to ``mobile Chernobyl.'' That is an irresponsible statement, Mr.
President. Everybody who has looked at Chernobyl knows it was not poor
reactor design and human error that resulted in the accident. There was
no containment building. The design was flawed, and not to United
States or western standards. The technicians bypassed the safety
systems, the reactor went critical, and we had a terrible accident.
But to suggest that our bill is mobile Chernobyl is just simply
irresponsible. What we are trying to do is accept an obligation, a
legacy of our generation, and that is to properly dispose of this
waste, and properly disposing of it does not suggest leaving it where
it is. Those nuclear reactors and those pools that are being filled now
were not designed for extended storage. They are reaching their
capacity.
Many in the environmental community see this as an opportunity to
shut down a portion of the industry because any additional storage,
once the storage is filled, will require additional licensing. Some of
that licensing is going to be controlled by States. The States will
attempt to block it by using various concerns, little of which have any
scientific foundation. But nevertheless, they see this as a way to
substantially reduce the contribution of nuclear energy to generate
power in this country.
[[Page S2770]]
Some will imply if this bill does not pass, nuclear waste will not be
transported through this country. Well, let us take a little look at
that.
I have another chart here, because if one looks at the record, there
have been 2,500 shipments of used fuel across this country in the last
20 years. It is just not history, Mr. President, it is happening today.
The Department of Energy is transporting spent fuel from nuclear
reactors all over the world into the United States virtually as we
speak, by truck, by train, by barge, by boat.
If you do not hear about this from the other side, there is probably
a reason. And that reason is because these shipments have been and
continue to be completely uneventful. They are shipped in casks that
have been designed to address the emergencies forecast. In short, these
spent fuel shipments, history shows, are safe. As a consequence, Mr.
President, they are not news anymore.
At our hearing in February, all four members of the Nevada delegation
acknowledged there was no process and no level of scientific proof that
would decrease their opposition. I understand that, Mr. President. I
appreciate that. I know where they are coming from. They are coming
from the reality that regardless of what State we are talking about,
there would be an objection. But we have a responsibility, Mr.
President. The objections are based on politics, not science.
One of the Nevada Senators was in favor of sending high-level
materials to the Nevada test site as a State legislator. He voted for
A.J.R. 15 which was signed by the Nevada Governor in May 1975, which
asked, in my opinion, the Federal Government to simply do just that. I
think he was right the first time. It is safer, smarter, and cheaper to
contain these materials at one location in the remote Nevada desert.
The Nevada test site was used, as stated, for decades to explore
testing of nuclear bombs and it helped win the cold war. And now it can
help us win the war on radioactive waste disposal.
High-level nuclear waste, as I have stated time and time again, Mr.
President, is our legacy, and it is our obligation to dispose of it. It
is irresponsible to let this situation continue. It is unsafe to let
dangerous radioactive materials pile up. Pile up where, Mr. President?
Back in the 80 sites in 41 States. It is unwise to block safe storage
in a remote area when the alternative is to simply leave it in the 41
States.
Mr. President, this is a national problem. It requires a national
solution. We need to pass Senate bill 104.
I should comment briefly on the administration's attitude toward
nuclear waste storage because it has been a rather interesting one.
They have been content to simply ignore the problem as though they did
not have one, as though there was no obligation to take the waste, and
simply disregard the Government's contractual obligations. The American
people, I think, deserve better.
Safe nuclear storage should not be a political issue. It is a
scientific and legitimately environmental issue. We need a solution
now. And why I do not know, but the administration has again turned a
blind eye and a deaf ear.
In addition to threats in the environment and safety, 22 percent of
our electric capacity is at risk now by not taking decisive action on
what to do with the waste generated by our nuclear powerplants.
Mr. President, starting in January 1998, taxpayers throughout the
Nation, whether you use nuclear power or not, are going to be subjected
to claims of billions of dollars in liability payments because our
Government has not met its obligation to take that waste.
There is a contractual commitment outstanding, Mr. President. The
estimate of taxpayers' liability under a recent lawsuit blocked by
States are estimated to run as high as $80 billion. How much is that
per family, Mr. President? That is about $1,300 per family. You may
say, what do you mean? Why are we subjected to liability if the
Government does not take the waste?
There was a contractual commitment, Mr. President, to take the waste
beginning in 1998. The Government is not going to be able to take that
waste, so there are going to be claims filed and there is going to be
interest accrued. If they have to relocate it or expand facilities,
there are additional costs. The last estimate I saw was about $59.9
billion. The estimate, as I indicated, could run as high as $80
billion.
The cost of storage of spent nuclear fuel: That is about $19 to $20
billion. Return of nuclear waste fees: About $8.5 billion. Interest on
nuclear waste fees: $15 to $27 billion. Of course, depending on the
interest rate used. Remember the interest rate in December 1980? The
prime rate was 20.5 percent. A lot of people have forgotten that, Mr.
President. Consequential damages for shutdown of 25 percent of the
nuclear plants due to insufficient storage, power replacement costs:
Some $24 billion. I do not know what it is, but it is going to be full
employment for all the lawyers certainly.
Inaction is not an option. Inaction is simply irresponsible. That is
why we have attempted to craft this legislation to address a reality
that we are not going to be able to take the waste in a permanent
repository until the year 2015. So this allows a temporary action to
move the waste out so it is retrievable for disposition when a
permanent repository is constructed.
Mr. President, many of the opponents' claims, I think, have little
foundation. If we look back, interim storage at the Nevada test site
will not delay construction at Yucca Mountain. The type of construction
we anticipate would be a concrete pad with a cask designed to hold the
waste until a permanent repository is at hand. There will be a
viability assessment that will occur before the interim site is built.
The President will have a choice of interim sites after the viability
assessment.
This Nation faces a major decision, Mr. President: Either continue
storing high-level radioactive waste materials at these 80 locations in
41 States indefinitely, for the next administration, for the next
Congress, or the next Congress, and pay the claims and subject the
taxpayers to more litigation, or more safely contain them in one
centralized facility.
I am indeed sorry that facility has to be in one State, but it simply
has to be. So the option is clear and safer. It is safer and cheaper.
And the time for action is now.
Mr. President, I would like to refer to another chart relative to a
misnomer that has been brought up time and time again. And it is a
legitimate concern but it escapes a reality, and that is the issue of
transportation.
There has been 2,500 shipments of used nuclear fuel over the past 20
years. There has been no fatality, no injury, or no recorded
environmental damage that has ever occurred because of radioactive
cargo. I have a map here behind me that shows the routes for
transferring used fuel. And this took place from 1979 to 1995, the
routes used for 2,400 shipments.
They cover from Washington down through Oregon, close to California,
Montana, Idaho, Salt Lake, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado,
Wyoming, North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, up and down
the entire east coast seaboard, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee. I could go
on and on but, Mr. President, I am sure that you will agree it is a
pretty impressive transportation route. The map shows roads, rail
lines.
Some would say that they did not know these shipments took place.
Maybe that is why they have become uneventful. There has been an
accident with a truck carrying a cask, but the cask that contained the
nuclear materials performed as designed. They have not broken open.
They were designed for an accident of that nature.
We currently have about 30,000 metric tons of spent fuel in the
United States. The French alone have shipped that amount of spent fuel
all over Europe, all over the world. The Japanese are moving spent fuel
from Japan to France for reprocessing until they build their own
reprocessing plant.
This is not history, Mr. President. This is happening today all over
our country and all over the world. There seems to be somewhat of a
double standard why the Department of Energy claims it cannot possibly
fulfill its obligation to the U.S. electric ratepayers and the
obligation to take spent nuclear fuel. The Department of Energy is
doing exactly that for foreign countries.
[[Page S2771]]
Let me show you another map. Here are foreign research reactors
throughout the world--Canada, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia,
Australia.
They may ask why American taxpayers are paying for the Department of
Energy to transport, store nuclear waste from foreign countries while
American ratepayers are subjected to a Government that refuses to honor
its contractual commitments, refuses to take the waste.
All the countries in color ship fuel to the United States for storage
at the Department of Energy facilities. It seems to be a mystery. There
are a lot of mysteries around here. If they support taking fuel waste
from overseas, then you wonder if the issue of safety is really an
issue.
How can it be safe for the Department of Energy to ship spent fuel
halfway across the world but not across some of our States? Well, let
us take a little closer look because this is going to be the crux of a
lot of the arguments. Let us look at what the Department of Energy does
to transport nuclear waste across the United States.
This map, Mr. President, shows America's research reactors. They are
all over the place--all the red lines. Idaho National Engineering Lab
in Idaho; University of Missouri, Missouri; University of Missouri,
Columbia; Iowa State University; Purdue University; the University of
Michigan; Ohio State University; Massachusetts, MIT; University of
Lowell, Maine; Rhode Island Nuclear Science Center; Brookhaven National
Labs; University of Virginia; University of Florida; Georgia Institute
of Technology; Oak Ridge; Sandia National Laboratory; Los Alamos, and
on and on and on, Mr. President. They are scattered all across the
country. They move all over the country.
What we have here is a double standard. Why does the Department of
Energy pay to transport and store nuclear waste from foreign countries
but will not do its duty for U.S. power reactors that have paid for the
service? They do it for research reactors. The Department of Energy
says they may take foreign fuel to help with nonproliferation. That
perhaps is all well and good, but spent nuclear fuel is spent nuclear
fuel wherever it is. If transportation storage is safe for some, why
should it not be safe for all?
I think this proves my point that I mentioned earlier. The obstacles
to moving our Nation's spent nuclear fuel are political; they are not
technical. Senate bill 104 provides the authority to coordinate a
systematic, safe transportation network that requires the Department of
Energy to use NRC-certified transportation containers to transport fuel
along special routes. That transportation cannot occur until the
Department of Energy has provided specific technical assistance to
funding, to States, and to Indian tribes for emergency response
planning across the transportation routes. The language builds on what
is already a set system for spent fuel in the country.
It is further interesting to note with this volume of traffic, some
2,400 shipments, the problem has never been exposure to radiation from
spent fuel cargo, even in the fuel accidents between 1971 and 1989. The
Department of Transportation tells us that only seven accidents
occurred involving trucks carrying nuclear waste. There was no
radioactivity released in any of these accidents. Why? Because
transportation containers were designed to maintain their integrity. At
one time they were designing transportation casks, and the objective
was to have it so they would withstand a free fall from 40,000 feet,
assuming there was an accident, and they were anticipating moving it by
airplane, and the engineers claimed they could do that.
Mr. President, we will have an extended debate on this issue in the
coming days. As a manager of the bill, I will be sharing time with my
colleagues on various statements, accommodating amendments and pursuing
the debate with my colleagues from the other side. I think it is
important as we reflect on reality that there is no excuse for
continuing to delay this obligation any further.
I have gone over the liability of the taxpayers. I have gone over the
transportation that is in existence where we have moved nuclear waste
around this country safely. And to suggest that we are somehow going to
gain some significant benefit by putting off the decision is not
supported by any logic or rationalization that would convince this
Senator that there is any other action than moving forward on Senate
bill 104, accommodating Members' amendments, with the idea of getting
the job done.
Getting the job done now is a responsibility for all of us for the
future of nuclear energy in this country and the world. We simply
cannot move forward in this regard, we cannot address our concerns over
greenhouse gasses, which are increasing, without looking toward relief.
Nuclear energy offers us that relief. We have the technology. We are
seeing that technology move over to France and Japan. The bottom line
is, unless we address the issue of a repository for waste that has been
generated by the nuclear powerplants, we simply are going to be unable
to meet our responsibility in this body relative to that contractual
commitment that we made several years ago. This bill provides a
responsible alternative. The time to do it clearly is now.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senator from Nebraska [Mr.
Hagel] and the Senator from Michigan [Mr. Levin] be added as cosponsors
on Senate bill 104, to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. BRYAN. I thank the Chair.
Let me say as we begin this debate in this Congress, it reminds me
that we are talking about old wine in a new bottle. These arguments
have been advanced for decades now, and the prime mover is the nuclear
utility industry.
The fatal flaw in S. 104 is that it is unnecessary, unneeded, and bad
policy. That is not just the Senator from Nevada making that statement.
Let me review for the record some of the statements made by various
boards and commissions created by the Congress in terms of their
response.
We have the 1989 MRS Commission review. The commission report found
no safety advantage to centralizing the storage of spent fuel. In 1996,
the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board analyzed the issue of interim
storage and concluded that there is no urgent technical need for
centralized storage of commercial spent fuel--no need, no compelling
necessity, no safety advantage to be achieved. That was 1996. Now, the
Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board underwent a change in the
composition of the chairmanship, so in effect there was an opportunity
for essentially a new board composed of new members to review whether
or not they would agree with the position taken by their predecessors
in 1996. In testimony offered on February 5, 1997, by Dr. Jared L.
Cohen, the chairman of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, Dr.
Cohen simply reaffirmed the position taken by his predecessors, that
there is no need, either for technical or safety reasons, to move spent
fuel to a centralized storage facility for the next few years. He
further maintains that to maintain the credibility of the site
collection process, any decision with respect to interim storage should
be deferred until a technologically defensible site-suitability
determination can be made at Yucca Mountain.
Mr. President, that is what the scientists, the people who the
Congress, through a series of legislative enactments, have asked to
take a look at that, that is what they say--no need, no safety reasons,
no compelling necessity, bad policy. That is what the scientific
community says.
I said at the beginning this is old wine in new bottles. Indeed, Mr.
President, it is very, very old wine. The driving policy here is not
science; it is the nuclear utilities. It is not a new car. If one looks
back nearly two decades ago, on July 28, 1980, this issue was before
the Congress. This Senator was not a Member of the body at the time,
but the Congressional Record reflects debate on a proposed away-from-
reactor concept, which is akin, if you will, to this interim nuclear
waste proposal.
At that time, the distinguished Senator from Louisiana, Mr. Johnston,
addressed himself to the issue, referring again to this need to move
this nuclear waste away from the reactor sites--the same issue,
identical to what is being debated today. This is what the Senator from
Louisiana said nearly 17 years ago: ``Mr. President, this bill
[[Page S2772]]
deals comprehensively with the problem of civilian nuclear waste. It is
an urgent problem.'' Sound familiar? Urgent problem. Urgent problem.
``Mr. President, for this Nation, it is urgent, first, because we are
running out of reactor space at reactors for the storage of the fuel,
and if we do not build what we call away-from-reactor storage and begin
that soon, we could begin shutting down civilian nuclear reactors in
this country as soon as 1983.'' That was 14 years ago. Not a single
nuclear reactor in America has been closed or been forced to close
because of this issue. Some have closed because of overriding safety
concerns about their operation and maintenance. That, Mr. President, is
a separate issue.
So here again we have the nuclear utility industry sounding the
drumbeat, issuing a clarion call, generating hysteria, that indeed
there will be brownouts across the country and reactors will have to
close unless we pass S. 104, the modern day equivalent to the
legislation that was before the Senate of the United States some 17
years ago. The answer today is the same as the answer then. There is no
compelling necessity, no need, no rational policy to do so, and no
safety issue that makes that a compelling issue.
So we come back to a policy that is driven by the nuclear utilities
and their desire, insatiable as it may be, to move the reactor storage
from site, somewhere, anywhere, but in this particular piece of
legislation to a place at the Nevada Test Site or so-called interim
storage.
I want to take just a few minutes, Mr. President, and we will have an
opportunity to debate this at some length, as the distinguished
chairman indicated, but let me review the bill, because it is flawed
not only in its premise; it is flawed in its content. I want to talk
first of all about the National Environmental Policy Act. The National
Environmental Policy Act was enacted in 1969, enacted by bipartisan
actions of this Congress, signed by a Republican President, and it was
designed to do many things. But it was designed, first, to have an
environmental impact addressed before, not after, the decisions are
made.
Now, what this legislation does--and I must give the nuclear
utilities credit; their handsomely paid lawyers, legislative advocates,
have been skillful, if somewhat deceptive, in terms of what they have
crafted here. They say the National Environmental Policy Act, yes, it
is applicable. But the Secretary--referring to the Secretary of
Energy--shall not prepare an environmental impact statement under this
section before conducting the activities that are authorized and
commanded by the bill. Yes, the act exists, but you may take no action
on it at this earlier phase. And then it goes on to say that the impact
statement of the commission, in terms of what it may not address, shall
not consider the need for interim storage.
Mr. President, this is the total antithesis of the underlying
predicate of an environmental impact statement. In effect, this ties
one hand behind the back of those who would conduct such an
environmental impact statement and, on the other hand, writes the
script as to its conclusion before any study is undertaken.
So the first thing they cannot do--Heaven forbid that they should
examine the need for interim storage. They can't do that. No, they
can't examine the time of the initial availability. They may not,
Heaven forbid, consider any alternatives to the storage of spent
nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in an interim storage.
Heaven forbid that they would be able to consider any alternatives to
the site of the facility, or any alternatives to the design criteria,
or the environmental impacts of storage of spent nuclear fuel at a
high-level radioactive waste at the interim storage beyond the initial
term of the license.
Now, this is very good lawyering, but disastrous public policy,
because the initial application calls for a licensure period of 20
years. But when you look at the fine print, that can be extended for
another 100 years and can be renewed for 100 years thereafter. So any
environmental impact evaluation would be limited to the initial term of
the license, 20 years. Why is that particularly significant? Mr.
President, what we are dealing with is high-level nuclear waste. It is
deadly, not for 20 years, 100 years, or a thousand years, but for more
than 10,000 years. The National Academy of Sciences and other
distinguished groups that have looked at this have indicated that
indeed the impacts must be considered, and they must be considered even
beyond the 10,000 years, they argue. This would say limit it to the
first period of the initial term of the license, which is 10 years.
And, oh, yes, we don't want to have the courts review what may happen.
No, that would certainly be contrary to our tradition, our history, our
society, and our culture to have any kind of a timely judicial review.
This limits judicial review only to the time of licensing. So the
impacts, such as they may be, must be considered only at the time that
the commission makes a decision on licensing. ``No court shall have
jurisdiction''--we are talking about Federal court, not a State court.
``No court shall have jurisdiction to enjoin the construction or
operation of the interim storage facility prior to its final decision
on review of the commission's licensing action.''
It makes a mockery of the National Environmental Policy Act, an
absolute mockery. So indeed, that is the first thing it does that would
destroy a carefully framed set of legislative policies enacted by
Members of both political parties and a Republican President in 1969.
Now, let me also talk for a moment about a preemption section. This
was a subject of considerable debate in the last session of Congress
when this virtually identical bill--now, the chairman made some
reference to this fact--and I have not seen the language--that there
may be some changes in this section. But because we don't have them,
let me indicate that the bill as processed by the committee, in section
501, reads as follows: ``If the requirements of any Federal, State, or
local law, including a requirement imposed by regulation, or by any
other means under such a law, are inconsistent with or duplicative of
the requirements of the Atomic Energy Act or of this act''--this
specific legislation--``the Secretary shall comply only with the
requirements of this act and the Atomic Energy Act.''
Mr. President, make no mistake as to what that means. That wipes out
virtually every environmental law passed in the last 25 years by this
Congress--clean air, safe drinking water--it wipes them all out. That
was the posture of the bill when it was presented and acted upon in the
last Congress--preemption. That language remains in the committee
draft. If there are changes in that, we will comment at a later time.
Let me talk also about the standards. One may agree or disagree that
nuclear energy is good or bad national policy. That is something that
is reasonable to debate. But I want to speak specifically here to the
standards that are referenced in the act. Now, why are the standards--
and the distinguished occupant of the chair is very much aware of the
fact that our States are Western States with vast expanses of land, but
we are as concerned about the health and safety of our citizens as
those of our urban brethren who live along the eastern seaboard. So let
us talk about what this legislation does with respect to the standards
issue.
The first thing that it does is it seeks to impose a limitation on
the Environmental Protection Agency. Surely, one would agree that if we
are to have a facility to store nuclear waste, we ought to have a safe
standard. Can there be any fundamental disagreement with that? Well,
the answer might appear to be yes. But, clearly, the legislative
wordsmiths who have crafted this piece of legislation, much as they did
in the last legislative session, have sought to handcuff and limit the
Environmental Protection Agency's ability to establish standards. It is
cleverly done. Give a gold star for that. But here is what it says:
``Such standards shall be consistent with the overall system
performance established by this subsection, unless the Administrator
determines by rule that the overall system performance standard would
constitute an unreasonable risk to health and safety.'' Clearly, it
shifts the burden of proof. It mandates a legislative standard, greatly
diminished, unless the Environmental Protection Agency can prove to the
contrary, that it would constitute an unreasonable risk to health and
safety.
[[Page S2773]]
Now, why would it be unreasonable to say, look, if you are going to
establish this unnecessary, costly and, in my judgment, foolhardy
venture, at least provide health and safety standards for the people
who are going to have to live with that for 10,000 years. It doesn't
mean that that is unreasonable. It is not narrow or parochial. One
would think that every Member of this institution would feel that way.
But not here. Let me just say that that has been debated before in the
context of the WIPP facility and with respect to the WIPP facility, the
two able Senators from New Mexico took the floor and, at great length,
advocated very effectively that the standard for health and safety
should be the toughest standard possible. That occurred in debate in
this very Chamber in June 1996. The distinguished senior Senator, Mr.
Domenici, said, ``What is most important to us and what is most
important to the people of New Mexico is that, as this underground
facility * * *''--they were talking about the WIPP facility--``proceeds
to the point where it may be opened, that it be subject to the
Environmental Protection Agency's most strict requirements with
reference to health and safety. As a matter of fact, they must certify
it before it can be opened.''
I applaud the senior Senator from New Mexico for his concern for his
constituents. I agree with him. I hope my colleague from Nevada and I
will be provided the same benefit that would be afforded to the New
Mexico Senators, as they expressed it. Mr. Bingaman expressed himself
eloquently to the issue on that same day, the foremost concern that I
have. What the junior Senator from New Mexico said is, ``Our concern
from the beginning is whether or not we are adequately protecting the
health and safety of our citizens.''
Mr. President, we may not agree on everything in terms of public
policy. There is certainly ample room for policy debate on a whole host
of issues. I acknowledge that. But believe me, it seems to me that we
ought to be able to agree that health and safety is the most important
thing that we ought to be about.
I want to return to the subject of additional standards, because what
this legislation does is quite manipulative. It limits the ability of
those that we have vested with the responsibility of protecting our
health and safety, in my view, in a very, very sinister way. First of
all, it establishes, by legislative fiat, a 100 millirem standard. We
are talking about radioactive emission exposure. I freely acknowledge,
Mr. President, that I could not define a millirem with any degree of
specificity. But I do know that it is the scientific unit that is
accepted as the standard by which emissions are to be measured. I
invite the attention of the body to the fact that for safe drinking
water, it is a four millirem standard. We have other standards that are
set, such as the WIPP standards, which the distinguished Senators from
New Mexico addressed so eloquently last year as they were concerned
about the health and safety of New Mexicans, just as Senator Reid and I
are concerned about the health and safety of Nevadans.
Let me suggest--it's perhaps wildly idealistic--shouldn't we all be
concerned about the health and safety of Americans? We are one country,
one nation. As I will point out in a minute, this is not just a Nevada
issue. This affects tens of millions of people who would be affected by
the policy implications of this bill. Let me go on and say that if you
are from the Nordic countries, it is 10 millirems. The upper range
Yucca Mountain study is 30 millirems. I cite this because it is so
blatant. 100 millirems. That is a standard that is fixed not by
science--oh, no, the utility lawyers put that one in there for us to
contend with.
Now, the National Academy of Sciences is a highly respected body.
What they have indicated would be appropriate is a risk-based standard.
It seems reasonable to me. I hasten to emphasize, Mr. President, there
are no Nevadans that are on the National Academy of Sciences. They were
not selected by the Nevada delegation, Nevada's Governor, or the Nevada
Legislature. They were created by an act of Congress--the National
Academy of Sciences. That is what they have recommended. Who is to be
protected? This gets a little technical. Under S. 104, the standard of
protection is greatly reduced. It is done in almost an arcane
expression, but, in effect, 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--
the ``vicinity of the site''; we do not know what that means--extremes
in social behavior, eating habits, or other relevant practices or
characteristics, shall not be considered.
Has the National Academy of Sciences agreed with that standard? They
have not. They believe that it ought to be a critical group, a small,
relatively homogeneous group whose location and habits are
representative of those expected to receive the highest doses. Those
expected to receive the highest doses makes sense to me.
One of the other provisions in here is the application. In other
words, for what period of time must health and safety be considered? We
are talking about an interim facility that could, under the terms of
this legislation, last for thousands and thousands and thousands of
years. There is a limitation again because the utilities don't want a
scientific standard. They want something that they can lobby through
the Congress and get what they want.
So this legislation tells us that the commission shall issue the
license--referring to the license to operate the interim facility--if
it feels or finds reasonable assurance that for the first 1,000 years
following the commencement of the repository operations--1,000 years;
the recommendation by the National Academy of Sciences is that the
repository should be required to meet a standard during a period of
greatest risk and that there is no scientific basis for limiting the
time period to 10,000 years, or any other value. I hasten to note that
they believe that the standard should be considered even beyond the
10,000 years.
There is another provision in here that again is arcane but
particularly significant. That is that the commission is mandated to
assume no human intrusion--that is to say, in the next 10,000 years--if
no human intrusion would be possible. The National Academy of Sciences
conclude that there is no scientific basis for assuming there would be
no human intrusion.
The performance of the repository . . . should be assessed
using the same analytical methods and assumptions, including
those by the biosphere, the critical groups used in the
assessment of the performance for the undisturbed case.
The National Academy of Sciences also recommends another very
important provision. That is, that because these involve important
policy issues, opportunities for rulemaking necessitates wide-ranging
inputs from all interested parties.
That simply means giving people an opportunity to be heard, to
express themselves, to offer their own insights, and to allow those
with the technical background to offer the technical analyses. That
should be a matter of record before a decision. But not S. 104; these
are set by statute with no public comment period allowed.
So, Mr. President, we have something that is fatally flawed because
it is not needed. It makes no sense. We have something that currently
preempts the environmental laws of this country, emasculates the
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and establishes standards
which are arbitrary and not predicated upon science.
We will hear, as we have heard in previous debates, that this is all
about science, to let science prevail. This legislation makes a mockery
of the scientific process. It seeks to impose by legislative fiat a
policy and a parameter limitation that is inconsistent with science.
So let no one take the floor and argue that this is science that is
speaking. This is nuclear utility politics speaking. That is the only
thing that is being responded to.
We have all agreed--the White House, the Congress, Democrats and
Republicans--that we are going to balance the budget in the next 5
years. I want to specifically reference some of the language as it
relates to the funding.
The General Accounting Office has indicated in a report that the
current fiscal condition of the nuclear waste fund will experience a
shortfall of some $4 to $8 billion. That is to say that under its
current construction, without the changes that this legislation
[[Page S2774]]
makes, there would be a shortfall of $4 billion to $8 billion. I think
many of my colleagues are aware that the nuclear waste trust fund is
funded by a mill tax, a mill tax that is assessed on each kilowatt-hour
that is generated. If we are currently underfunded, as the General
Accounting Office has indicated, let me show you that the real
significance of this legislation from a financial point of view is to
shield the nuclear utilities from the liabilities that they agreed to
undertake at the time the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was entered into and
the agreements were signed and to shift their responsibility in the
financial sense to the American taxpayer.
This legislation provides that until the year 2002 the current 1 mill
per kilowatt-hour will get capped. That is the maximum that can be
collected from the utilities. That is a cap, contrary to the existing
law which presents no such cap.
In addition, this legislation provides that from the year 2003 the
aggregate amount of fees--I will read the specific language. Although
it is written in bill-drafting legalese, I think it will be clear to
all. ``The aggregate amount of fees collected during each fiscal year,
or thereafter, shall be no greater than the annual level of
appropriations for expenditures on those activities.''
If we put that in the context of what is being spent this year, it
would be roughly one-third of the mill, which would be the most that
could be assessed.
Why is that significant? That is significant because the last reactor
license will expire sometime around the year 2033, and the
responsibility for maintaining a repository would go on, in an active
sense, for at least, say, roughly another 40 years. So that means that
that kind of funded liability will be shifted from the nuclear
utilities to the American taxpayer.
I say to my friends--and I was supportive of a constitutional
amendment to balance the budget, and I think that makes sense--that I
believe one of the great legacies this Congress could leave to the
American people is to get our fiscal house in order, to do some
responsible things for the budget, and to reach that balanced budget
goal by the year 2002. But, Mr. President, there is no way that you can
give the utilities a bailout, a subsidy, if you will, a new corporate
entitlement, to elevate corporate welfare to a high art form as this
piece of legislation does. It caps their liability and says we will
take care of the rest contrary to existing law. Existing law does not
contemplate that that be true.
Moreover, this legislation, S. 104, contemplates that that would be
an interim storage. That would still fund the site characterization and
the study activities of the permanent repository. But the estimate for
funding interim storage, as this bill constitutes--and that comes from
the Congressional Budget Office--in the first 5 years is $2.3 billion.
If you add that to the cost of what we are currently expending, an
amount of about $380 million a year--that is the total we are spending
right now--in the next couple of years you are going to have to have $1
billion by the fiscal year 1999--that is $1 billion--to fund the
current operation of an interim storage facility and the high-level
nuclear waste repository proposed at Yucca Mountain.
It is pretty clear what this is all about. This is an interim
storage. This is a thinly disguised attempt to establish a permanent
high-level dump without any of the safeguards that are provided in the
current legislation form for a permanent repository.
Mr. President, my colleague from Nevada has joined me. If I might
inquire of him, I know that he might care to speak extensively on the
transportation issue. I am prepared to do so if he cares to address
another aspect of that. But I will invite his response.
Mr. REID. I say to my friend from Nevada that I appreciate that. I
have a few things to say. But I will not speak at length about the
transportation aspect. If my friend would allow me to speak for a few
minutes at a time which he feels appropriate.
Mr. BRYAN. I yield to the senior Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the senior Senator from
Nevada.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we need to understand what this debate is
all about, and that is how powerful the nuclear lobby is. We
acknowledge that it is pretty strong. They have gotten more out of a
worthless piece of legislation than I could ever imagine. They
continually are allowed to bring this up and continually talk about it.
Mr. President, my friend, the junior Senator from Alaska, said that
nuclear waste is all over, that we need to put it in one spot. Nuclear
waste is all over, and it will stay all over for years to come no
matter what happens with this legislation; no matter what happens with
the legislation as it relates to the permanent repository, where my
friend is absolutely wrong. Nuclear waste is not in some States.
Commercial nuclear waste is not in Nevada. We don't manufacture nuclear
waste. It is not in the Dakotas. It is not in Montana and a number of
other States. So the statement was a little wrong.
Mr. President, this legislation, I repeat, is being driven by the
nuclear lobby. As shown in the chart that the junior Senator from
Alaska had, there are a number of nuclear generating plants around the
country; a little over 100 generating facilities. The average lifespan
of those facilities is about 15 years. Some will last 25 years. Some
will be out of business in 5 years.
The point is that nuclear waste manufactured by power companies
generating electricity is in our lifetime going to be a thing of the
past. It is not going to happen in the future. Generating electricity
by nuclear power is no longer going to happen. It has been determined
that the environmental concerns are too much and the American public
simply won't stand for another nuclear power facility being built in
this country at any time.
The powerful nuclear lobby recognizes that they are going to be out
of the business of generating electricity by nuclear power. So they
want to wash their hands of the mess they have created and shift the
responsibility to the Federal Government now. They don't want to wait,
as the law now indicates, until someday a permanent repository is
constructed. They want to short-circuit the system. They want to change
the law, which now says you can't have a permanent repository and a
temporary repository in the same State. They want to eliminate that.
They want to also do an end run around all environmental law.
Mr. President, my friend, the junior Senator from Alaska, said that
they were working on amendments with the junior Senator from New
Mexico. Well, I would just alert everyone. Be very careful about the
amendments because, as we learned last year, amendments in name are not
amendments in fact. The fact is that they cannot make changes in this
legislation to any standard that will allow them to go forward with
this legislation. They are talking about changes in this legislation by
amendments just like they did last year. But when the facts come down,
you will find that their amendments mean virtually nothing. You had
better read the amendments very carefully.
Mr. President, I think it is important to note that from 1982 to
today, the scientific community has been working on methods of
transportation, as indicated on the chart that my friend, the Senator
from Nevada had, showing the transportation routes around the country--
they, the scientists, have been working on a way to transport nuclear
waste. They have been working on it, now, for 15-plus years.
Interestingly enough, they have not found a way to safely transport
nuclear waste. The best they have been able to come up with is
something called a dry-cask storage container, which is a canister, and
in it would be placed spent fuel assemblies.
What they have come up with to this point is a dry-cask storage
container that is safe unless it is immersed in a fire that burns at
more than 1,400 degrees. Diesel fuel burns at 1,800 degrees. So these
dry-cask storage containers are not safe because, of course, fires that
are going to occur on a train or a truck are going to be of diesel
fuel. These casks cannot withstand the intense heat of a diesel fire.
Second, the dry-cask storage containers have been made safe only to
transport nuclear waste if an accident occurs at less than 30 miles an
hour. Trains and trucks in this modern day and age rarely travel less
than 30 miles
[[Page S2775]]
an hour. So a dry-cask storage container is basically worthless for
transporting nuclear waste around this country. Remember, most of the
nuclear waste is produced in the eastern and southern parts of the
United States. It would have to be hauled, sometimes, more than 3,000
miles to an interim site at the Nevada test site. You cannot carry it
safely because the dry-cask storage containment does not allow it;
because accidents occur at more than 30 miles an hour and fires occur
at more than 1,400 degrees. In effect, that is why a number of
entities, including entities in the State of Colorado, have said we
want no part of nuclear waste. And that is why the senior Senator from
Colorado has spoken out in committee on our behalf, saying interim
storage is not important and not necessary at this stage.
Yucca Mountain is being evaluated--it will be determined if that is a
site that can safely store nuclear waste for up to 10,000 years--
remember, they are digging a hole inside that mountain. The cavern they
are digging is more than 25 feet in diameter. It is a huge hole. You
can take a train through it easily. But I think it is interesting, and
that the taxpayers should know, that hole, piercing that mountain, is
costing $60,000 a foot. The cost now is approaching $2 billion. What
this legislation would do is say we will forget about that, the
billions of dollars spent there. We want to short circuit the system,
pour a big cement pad out there and dump the waste on top of the
ground.
Anyone who thinks that is temporary is temporarily insane. The
purpose of that is to store it permanently at the so-called interim
site.
My friend, the junior Senator from Alaska said, and I was surprised
to hear him say this, it is so absolutely true--he said this
legislation is little about science and a lot about politics. I could
not say it better myself. I agree with the junior Senator from Alaska.
This legislation deals totally with politics, nuclear politics. The
powerful nuclear lobby is driving this legislation. They want to wash
their hands of this. It appears that we are about to repeat last year's
wasteful mistake. They tried all last year to get S. 1936 passed. What
was learned at that time was that the President was going to veto that.
We had enough votes at that time to sustain the President's veto. We
still have the same votes. Everyone knows that. This is a gesture in
nuclear politics, to show the nuclear power lobby: ``We are doing
everything we can to satisfy you. Please, accept our offering, that is
the taxpayers' time, energy and money, in this Senate Chamber. Do not
be upset with us, utilities. We are doing the best we can, even though
we all recognize this legislation is going down to defeat.''
Nothing has changed from last year that would make S. 104 any more
attractive than S. 1936 was at the conclusion of the 104th Congress. In
fact, we have another year of progress toward understanding the
suitability of Yucca Mountain. Hundreds of millions of dollars have
been spent in this past year in Nevada, characterizing Yucca Mountain.
I have been there within the past 2 months. I took a ride through that
huge hole that is being dug. They are trying--in fact, within weeks
they should be able to cut through the side of the mountain a tunnel 5
miles long, $60,000 dollars, and after they do that they will start
running shafts, adits and cross-cuts and drifts from that, for purposes
of determining the suitability of this site.
We need to find out if Yucca Mountain is suitable. The interim
storage would vitiate all the time, energy, effort and money spent on
that facility. The President and this administration remain committed
to the present law that prohibits siting an interim storage facility at
a site undergoing evaluation for permanent disposal of nuclear fuel or
other high-level nuclear waste. This commitment is not political
posturing, it is good government. And mostly, good science. It is only
proper and responsible, given the importance and difficulty of managing
the most dangerous substance known to man, plutonium and nuclear waste
in general.
As I have indicated, this Nation has already spent billions of
dollars--I said $2 billion, it is approaching $3 billion--on the Yucca
Mountain evaluation. We have dug a very large tunnel through the
mountain, as I have indicated. It is huge. It is more than 2 stories
high. It is not easy or cheap to do these things, because something
like this has never been done before. Yet the proponents of this
legislation are saying we want to do it the easy way. We want to do it
the cheap way. We want to pour a cement pad out in the middle of the
desert and dump this stuff on top of the ground. That's it.
We all know, no matter what verbiage the junior Senator from Alaska
uses--``we are going to limit the time to 40 years''--it doesn't matter
if you limit the time to 20 years or 80 years, this interim site will
be the permanent site. That is why they want to change the law to say
you can have a permanent repository and a temporary repository in the
same place.
Time is what the proponents of S. 104 would take away from the
science. The scientists have said we are doing the best we can to make
a scientific determination as to whether geological burial at Yucca
Mountain is appropriate. Much of the money necessary to resolve
critical uncertainties would be spent unnecessarily on interim storage
at Yucca Mountain and the money spent on the permanent repository would
be wasted, totally wasted.
We have heard talk here, by everyone, last year and this year, about
the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. They are a group of
scientists chosen because they are scientists, first of all. The
chairman of the board is a dean from Yale University. I do not think we
can quibble with his qualifications. But his expertise is only one of
the qualifications these scientists have. These are some of the most
brilliant scientists in the world, on the Nuclear Waste Technical
Review Board.
They have told us a number of things. No. 1, what they told us is
``Don't have an interim storage site.'' They have also said that:
The civilian radioactive waste management program will have
to sustain the support of the general public and the
scientific and technical community for generations. Such
support may be more difficult to maintain if the
determination of site suitability, perhaps the most critical
step in the entire process of developing a repository, is not
viewed as a technically objective evaluation by a very broad
segment of the population.
The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board opposes this S. 104. It is
wrong. And for the reason, among others that I have just read, that it
is not viewed as technically objective.
The board chairman went on to say, at a hearing on S. 104, Professor
Cohen:
Predicting the performance of a repository for thousands of
years involves inherently large uncertainties. The Board
believes that scientists and regulators can evaluate those
uncertainties. Ultimately, however, the public and its
representatives must have confidence that technical
analyses count; if the analyses are viewed as facades
serving only to justify foregone conclusions, public
confidence cannot be achieved.
A premature decision to store spent nuclear fuel near the
Yucca Mountain site could contribute to the perception that
the suitability of the site for development as a repository
has been prejudged and that the reviews by scientists and
regulators are meaningless.
I say to my friend, the junior Senator from Nevada, that Nuclear
Waste Technical Review Board--would you acknowledge that they are some
of the greatest scientists we have in America today?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. BRYAN. They are. They are not motivated by any political,
geographic, sectional, or partisan bias. They are chosen because they
have the preeminent qualifications. I believe the senior Senator was
off the floor when I made the observation, we have had two successive
technical review boards --the one that made its report in 1996, which
the Senator will recall was part of our debate. But a new board,
constituted under the distinguished chairmanship of the dean, as you
just referenced, they have looked at the issue and have reached the
same conclusion.
So, here you have a board of preeminent scientists examining the
issue in 1996 and they reached the conclusion which you have just
declared, namely that it is unnecessary, there is no advantage to it,
indeed it is bad public policy. And, now the 1997 board, essentially
consisting of new members, but equally eminent and distinguished
scientists, has reached the same conclusion.
Mr. REID. I would also say to my friend, and ask his response to
this--
[[Page S2776]]
would you agree with the board, the technical review board, that one of
the most important things to do, as it relates to nuclear waste, is
have public confidence?
Mr. BRYAN. I think that is absolutely essential. And that is one
thing that has beleaguered this legislation, dating back to the 1982
act.
As the Senator from Nevada knows, because of the nuclear utilities'
constant driving, pushing, insisting upon unrealistic deadlines, trying
to shortcut science, this act has faced a considerable series of
failures. And, as the board has pointed out from time to time, this is
not something that you can rush. Indeed, it is something that needs to
be very carefully reviewed. And because there is this constant pressure
by the nuclear lobby to constrict the timelines, to shorten all of the
opportunities for public comment, this legislation, and S. 104, would
certainly fit within the same category--is not going to enjoy public
confidence.
Indeed, the very point that the Senator has made on many occasions on
the floor is true, that the 1998 timeframe, which has been invoked by
the proponents of S. 104 as if it were a date carved in stone, attested
to by all of the deities, is, in fact, a deadline which the scientific
community urged not to be placed in the legislation for the very reason
the Senator inquired of the junior Senator from Nevada, the timeline
was unrealistic.
So, now, in effect they are using their argument of 1998 to, in
effect, bootstrap their argument that 1998 will come and there will be
no permanent resolution to it, and, therefore, we need this ill-
conceived proposal that is before us.
Mr. REID. I ask my friend another question. Eminent scientists have
said S. 104 is bad. You agree?
Mr. BRYAN. Absolutely true.
Mr. REID. Can you think of a single environmental organization in the
world--well, let us limit it to the United States. Can you think of a
single environmental organization, for-profit or nonprofit, that
supports this legislation?
Mr. BRYAN. I cannot, and, in point of fact, every nationally
recognized environmental group that I can think of has indicated its
strong opposition to this legislation as being unsound environmental
policy. I think the point that the Senator from Nevada makes is a good
point. Frequently, in what I would refer to most respectfully and
charitably as convoluted logic, I have heard S. 104 characterized as an
important piece of environmental legislation. That would give new
meaning to environmental legislation. No environmental organization, as
the senior Senator points out, supports this legislation and, again,
for the basic reason that it is unnecessary and it is bad policy. It
simply is not good policy.
Mr. REID. If we change our course now, Madam President, there is no
doubt in my mind that a permanent repository will never be built and
all the effort and all the money will just go down the drain as
misguided nuclear politics.
The work done at Yucca Mountain is an essential part of the program
that was promised to guarantee public health and safety at any site
selected for a permanent repository. This guarantee was done in 1982 by
Chairman Udall and others who were prominent in pushing this
legislation through, the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
Without their assurance, the Congress would never have supported the
policy amendment, would never have supported the underlying legislation
and the policy amendment that designated Yucca Mountain in 1987 as the
only site to be characterized. The arguments then were, ``We'll do such
a grand job of scientific study and evaluation that there will be no
question about Yucca Mountain suitability, reliability; we will never
compromise on safety, not where the American public is concerned; we
will do everything necessary to identify and resolve any concerns that
Yucca Mountain might not be a suitable repository site; we guarantee
Yucca Mountain will not become a storage site before all concerns have
been satisfied.''
Madam President, that was then, and this is now. Then was a time for
promises that they hope everybody has forgotten. Now is a time for
political expediency and smoothing the ruffled feathers of the powerful
nuclear power-generating lobby. Now is the time for pushing the waste
into Nevada before anything is ready, even without a repository site,
even though the scientific community says no, even though the
environmental community says no. Never mind repository reliability and
permanent isolation from the environment. If anything happens, it will
happen on someone else's watch, in someone else's backyard. That, Madam
President, is bait and switch if I ever saw it. It is a well known, but
not a highly respected way of doing business, and it should not be done
here.
I have talked about the independent reviews by competent Government-
chartered experts. We have talked about the Nuclear Waste Technical
Review Board. Here is a direct quote that you will hear from the two
Senators from Nevada of what the chairman of the Nuclear Waste
Technical Review Board said:
. . . because there are no compelling technical or safety
reasons to move spent fuel to a centralized storage facility
for the next few years, siting a centralized facility near
Yucca Mountain can be deferred until a technically defensible
site-suitability determination is made. . . . Deferring the
siting of a storage facility until that time will help
maintain the credibility of the site-suitability decision.
Madam President, I hear people and I know my friend from Nevada has
heard the same thing, ``Well, what are you going to do with the
waste?''
If I can call upon my friend from Nevada again for a question, he
will recall last year in the debate there were dire urgings that if
something did not happen last year, powerplants would close down last
year. Do you recall in the early eighties statements similar to this
being made?
Mr. BRYAN. I do, indeed. It was made in 1980. Neither the senior
Senator from Nevada nor the junior Senator from Nevada were Members of
this body or of the other one at that time. But then, as now, the
nuclear utilities were urging the Congress to adopt interim storage,
they then were called away from reactor storage. The statements were
made during the floor debate that if this were, in fact, not done, that
within the next 3 years, by 1983, nuclear utilities would have to close
down and there would be brownouts.
As the senior Senator from Nevada knows, that was 1980. In a sense,
if you took the date off that legislation and inserted the words
``interim storage'' for ``AFR,'' it would be identical to the context
of the debate.
If the senior Senator from Nevada will indulge me for a moment, this
is what was said by the then chairman of the Energy Committee, Mr.
Johnston, the distinguished Senator from Louisiana:
Mr. President, this bill--
Referring to the AFR legislation--
deals comprehensively with the problem of civilian nuclear
waste. It is an urgent problem--
Sounds somewhat familiar, does it not?
Mr. President, for this Nation. It is urgent, first, because
we are running out of reactor space at reactors for the
storage of the fuel, and if we do not build what we call
away-from-reactor storage and begin that soon, we could begin
shutting down civilian nuclear reactors in this country as
soon as 1983. . . .
I say to my friend from Nevada, that is, in essence, the debate that
we heard in 1996. Just substitute a date and put it 3 or 4 years into
the future. Those are the opening comments made by the chairman of the
Energy Committee that we just heard. This is the nuclear utility
refrain. It has become kind of a mantra, their Holy Grail, and, in
point of fact, as the senior Senator from Nevada well knows, that is
simply not the case. That is scare tactics; that is hysteria.
Mr. REID. I say also to my friend from Nevada, we established with
the dry cask storage containers I spoke of earlier that if they burn
from diesel fuel, that is bad. If you are in an accident because of
going fast, that is bad. I say to my friend from Nevada, we
acknowledged what some of the scientists are saying: Leave it where it
is. Put these spent-fuel rods in dry cask storage containers in onsite
storage. It would be safe, you would not have a diesel fire or accident
from going fast. It would be safe and cheap. It would cost hardly
anything to do that. There are utilities doing that right now, is that
not true?
Mr. BRYAN. That is absolutely correct. There are a number of
utilities
[[Page S2777]]
that do it. One is just about 40 miles from the Nation's Capital. It is
authorized by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. So this is not a
proposal that originates from those of us in this body, it is a
scientifically accepted alternative that is available onsite storage
which provides a 100-year storage option without, as the senior Senator
from Nevada correctly points out, the risk involved in transportation
and handling.
I might just add parenthetically, with all the talk about the casks
that are going to be used to be shipped across the country, those casks
have not yet been designed and licensed.
Mr. REID. Even if they were, with the standards they have now been
able to establish, it would be unsafe to transport them.
Mr. BRYAN. Absolutely.
Mr. REID. ``Deferring the siting of a storage facility until that
time will help to maintain the credibility of the site-suitability
decision.''
That is what was said by the chairman of the Nuclear Waste Technical
Review Board, among other things.
These same reviews have cited the steady and productive progress
toward the objective--and I underline and underscore ``objective''--of
determining Yucca Mountain's suitability for siting the Nation's
repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
The powerful, aggressive, obsessive nuclear power lobby is not
willing to wait. They are not willing to wait. They do not care about
the credibility of the site-suitability decision. They are only
interested in getting it out of their pockets, out of their backyards
and putting it someplace else. Their arguments, I say, are mindless and
reckless. Their arguments are specious.
As we have indicated, spent fuel is safe right where it is. My
friend, the senior Senator from Colorado, stated during the committee
hearing that if the waste is safe enough to ship, it is safe enough to
leave in place. That says it all.
The arguments for consolidation are without substance because an
interim storage facility at Yucca Mountain will not reduce the number
of storage sites. On the contrary, it will increase their number. This
is fact, it is not supposition, it is not presumptive, it is not
vulnerable to contradiction. Continuing operations will require onsite
storage of spent fuel in cooling ponds or in an onsite interim facility
for transportation staging.
Nuclear waste will always be stored temporarily at operating nuclear
power-generating sites. For those generating sites that either have
terminated operations or will terminate operations, preparation for
transportation will take far more time than is required for the 1998
viability decision for Yucca Mountain. They know that. Preparations to
ship this waste material across the country have hardly begun, and that
is an understatement.
In his arguments against S. 104, the chairman of the Nuclear Waste
Technical Review Board pointed out:
The country currently has a capacity to transport only a
few hundred metric tons of spent fuel a year.
And, I might say as an aside, some people would agree we cannot even
haul that much. He went on to say:
Developing a transportation infrastructure necessary to
move significant amounts of waste, including the
transportation of casks and enhanced safety capabilities
along the routes, will take a few years longer than will be
needed to develop the simple centralized storage facility
currently envisioned by DOE. A site-suitability decision
could be made beginning the interim storage facility with no
lost time.
If transportation performance is not improved, there will be at least
50 accidents involving spent fuel or high-level radioactive waste on
our railroads and highways here. That is what the average would be
under the present statistics--50 accidents involving spent fuel or
high-level nuclear waste. That is a lot of accidents, I must say.
Madam President, I want to close this part of my statement by
reminding everyone why we are here. We are here because of the nuclear
power lobby. There is no other reason. The President has said he is
going to veto this legislation. The legislation will be vetoed. The
President's veto will be sustained. There is no reason that we are
doing this other than because of the nuclear power lobby, and some are
trying to satisfy this lobby. We would be better off by dealing with
the budget, which, I say to my friend from Nevada, as I understand the
law, were we not to have completed a budget before the April break when
we went home for Easter? Isn't that the law?
Mr. BRYAN. That is my understanding, that we are obligated to do so,
but we have not yet done so.
Mr. REID. I will also state that if we do not have a budget, we
cannot deal with the 13 appropriations bills. I am a member of the
Appropriations Committee, and we have done nothing, basically, on our
appropriations legislation because we have not gotten our marks from
the Budget Committee. Thirteen appropriations bills and not a single
one has been marked up.
We are absolutely going nowhere. But what are we doing here? We are
spending a week on legislation that the President said he is going to
veto, which failed last year because of that. If there were ever a
colossal waste of legislative time, which means taxpayers' time, this
is it. I yield the floor.
Mr. BRYAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized.
Mr. BRYAN. Madam President, the junior Senator from Nevada has been
criticized and taken to task somewhat because he has referred to this
legislation as a ``mobile Chernobyl.'' In that criticism, it has been
said, ``Look, what happened at Chernobyl is a different situation
entirely. There you had a reactor explode. This is not going to
explode.'' I concede that there are differences in terms of causation,
but the results are equally devastating.
We are talking about the shipment of 85,000 metric tons of nuclear
waste. That would involve, as has been estimated, about 15,638
shipments--6,217 by truck, roughly 9,421 by rail. So we are looking at
about 15,638 to roughly 17,000 shipments.
Each of those truck casks would weigh 25 tons. Each rail cask would
weigh 125 tons. One rail cask--one rail cask--carries the long-lived
radiological equivalent of 200 Hiroshima bombs--200.
So when I use the ``mobile Chernobyl'' analogy, the risk to Nevadans,
the risk to Americans, if indeed a rail cask ruptured as a result of an
accident and radiation was released, it would be a mobile Chernobyl
because the spread of radioactivity and the resultant contamination
that results as a consequence could be widespread.
I would simply point out to those who are so sanguine about
transportation that we are daily reminded that human error--the
chairman of the Energy Committee pointed out that Chernobyl was a
product of human error. Indeed, Madam President, I suspect that a great
many of our accidents, maybe even a majority of them, are a product of
human error. We see that every time there is a major rail collision or
a train that is derailed as a consequence of some neglect in trackage.
We have certainly seen it in the context of terrorist activities of
late.
But the National Environmental Law Center provides that EPA data
analysis shows that 7,959 accidents occurred during the transportation
of toxic chemicals from 1988 to 1992. The American Petroleum Institute
tells us that heavy truck accidents occur approximately six times for
each million miles traveled with thousands of truck shipments. This
means that at least 15 such accidents could be expected each year.
So the risks are considerable in terms of this transportation, all of
which are unnecessary. It is not necessary or advisable or prudent or
sound policy to do so.
This is frequently characterized as a Nevada battle. But let me just
say, fairly recently there has been a proposal to move the nuclear
waste from a port in Oakland through Nevada and into Idaho. It has
generated a considerable amount of controversy, not only in my own
State, but in California. I believe that those who are watching across
the Nation should be aware of the fact that Nevadans are not the only
ones who are placed at risk by this ill-conceived proposal.
The shipment routes involve 43 different States, and 51 million
Americans live within 1 mile of either the rail or highway corridor
routes.
On this chart that we are exhibiting, the highway corridors are
depicted in red, the rail routes are depicted in blue. With the kinds
of massive shipments we are talking about--125 tons
[[Page S2778]]
by rail, 25 tons by each truck cask--you could only use the major
corridor routes. You would not use some back road or unimproved
surface. You would need a full-scale transportation route.
With all the potential for accident, with all the potential for some
serious, unintended, unavoidable consequence, we risk the lives of 51
million Americans to satisfy the request of a single industry in
America--the nuclear utility industry. They are the only ones that
bring us to the floor to debate this issue today. As my senior
colleague pointed out, they were the ones in 1980 that brought it to
the floor. They were the ones that brought it to the floor in 1996. And
if we are successful, as I believe that we will be in 1997 in
preventing this legislation from being enacted into law, based upon a
carefully considered Presidential position that he will veto such
legislation, I would predict that they will be back here in 1998, 1999,
and the year 2000 because this is something that they covet and that is
a priority for them.
So the transportation issue, of which we will comment more during the
course of the debate tomorrow, is a consideration that affects 51
million Americans in 43 different States. As they say, you cannot get
there from here. You have to take that lethal waste across the heart of
America. Most of this waste--most of this waste--being east of the
Mississippi River will involve transportation over literally thousands
of rail or highway miles.
Let me briefly comment on a couple of other points. The chairman of
the Energy Committee pointed out that there is a lawsuit that was
filed. He said, as others have said, that it requires that the
Department of Energy must take possession of nuclear waste that is
stored throughout the reactor sites by 1998 and, if we do not do so,
that all kinds of horrendous consequences will occur.
First, let me point out that the lawsuit was decided last year prior
to the vote that we took on S. 1936, which is the predecessor to S. 104
and essentially in the significant aspects is virtually identical. So
this is not a new development.
But I think it is important to comment because the utilities have
sought to obfuscate the issue and have given the impression that,
indeed, in 1998 there will be a series of Department of Energy trucks
or vans or rail cars that must back up to every reactor site in America
and begin to load those on board and that, lo and behold, if they do
not have an interim storage facility, these vehicles will be traveling
endlessly for all time and in perpetuity.
Nonsense. The lawsuit did conclude that the Department of Energy has
an obligation, a legal responsibility. And you look to what the remedy
is in the contracts.
In 1982, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was enacted by the Congress,
signed into law by President Reagan. In that act it required utilities
to enter into contracts with the Department of Energy. And all the
utilities that are part of this debate have done so.
When you look at the contract, there are two provisions, two
provisions that specifically deal with this issue.
I again remind my friends that 1998 was not a date sanctified by the
scientific community. That was a date the utilities insisted upon. The
Department of Energy and others argued that that date was unrealistic.
``We're not going to be able to reach that date,'' they said. But the
utilities said, ``No. 1998, we want that.'' That is what the law
reflected.
But in the contract that was required to be entered into with each of
the utilities with the Department of Energy, there were two provisions.
Both of these provisions are contained in article 9.
What it said is this: In anticipation that the 1998 date may not be
fulfilled, it indicated that if the delays were unavoidable by the
Department of Energy, that is, if the delays were beyond their control,
that there was no culpability. Then the remedy that was provided was
simply to reschedule the delivery dates. It makes some sense.
The other provision that is applicable--and I am sure the utilities
will urge this point of view--is, indeed, there is culpability on the
part of the Department of Energy. As a result of their culpability, it
would be classified under the provisions of the contract as an
``avoidable'' delay. That, too, is part of article 9, section B.
The contract remedy is, in the event of any delay in the delivery,
acceptance or transport caused by circumstances within the reasonable
control of the Department of Energy or their respective contractors or
suppliers, the charges and schedules specified by this contract will be
equitably adjusted to reflect any estimated additional cost. That
strikes me as being reasonable.
I had occasion in many years past to practice law, not nuclear
utility law or environmental law, but what this says is that, look, if
the Department of Energy is found to have been negligent in moving the
process forward, the utility is entitled to an adjustment of what they
are paying into the nuclear waste trust fund based upon additional
costs that are being incurred. Indeed, that is not a novel concept.
When this Senator first came to the Senate in 1989, and in each
session thereafter, joined by my senior colleague from Nevada, we have
offered legislation that does indeed provide that the utilities would
be entitled to an offset or compensation for the additional expense
that they may incur as a result of this 1998 deadline being
unattainable.
So there is no great mystery about the lawsuit. It changes nothing in
the debate that we have, nothing whatsoever, and should not be used as
a basis for supporting the legislation that is currently before us.
Finally, let me make just one additional comment that the senior
Senator from Nevada addressed. That is that this legislation is not
going to become law.
The President of the United States, as he did in 1996, indicated that
this is bad policy, and following the advice and counsel of the
scientific community--the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
concluded that it was unnecessary, unwise, and indeed there is no
necessity for this, no safety is to be gained by this massive shipment
of 85,000 metric tons of waste. This is a scientific body that
concluded that in 1996, and although the board is newly constituted
with a new chairman and many new members, it reached the same
conclusion in 1997, this very year, in testimony that verified that
interim storage is not necessary. So the President, following the wise
counsel of those who have examined this from a scientific and objective
point of view, has indicated, as shown in testimony before the Senate
Energy Committee, that this legislation will be vetoed if indeed it
should reach his desk.
We will have much more to say about this issue as we debate it during
the course of the next week or so. We will point out with greater
particularity a number of the issues that we have touched upon lightly
today. I just hope, for my colleagues who are watching and their
staffs, that we not be misled. This is legislation that is a carbon
copy of the legislation that was debated in S. 1936 in the last session
of the Congress.
I yield the floor.
Madam President, I see no one else is on the floor seeking
recognition. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business for a period of about 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DASCHLE. I thank the Presiding Officer.
Madam President, let me begin by complimenting my distinguished
colleagues for their statements on the floor this afternoon. My
intention is not necessarily to speak on that issue, but as I have in
the past, I am supportive of their efforts and commend them once more
for their concerted effort to bring some fairness to the issue that
they have addressed. This is a matter of great import to the State of
Nevada. No one has been more articulate, more aggressively persuasive
on the issue than have the two distinguished colleagues from Nevada. I
commend them and urge our colleagues to listen carefully to their
counsel and support their
[[Page S2779]]
efforts as we proceed for the remainder of this week on this very
important issue.
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