[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 75 (Wednesday, June 4, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H3277-H3278]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL

  (Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

[[Page H3278]]

  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, think about what $2.3 billion would buy 
today. If the American people knew what Congress was planning to do 
with this large sum of money, they would be appalled. Does anyone here 
honestly think the American people would choose to spend this money to 
transport nuclear waste through their States, their communities, their 
towns and their backyards? I do not think so. Yet this is exactly what 
H.R. 1270, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997 will do.
  Today, schools need more teachers, communities need more police, 
veterans need a cost-of-living adjustment, and the hard-working men and 
women of this country need a tax break. Why then, Mr. Speaker, do some 
in this body contend that the $2.3 billion should be used to subsidize 
nuclear powerplants? It is an unfair, unfunded mandate.
  H.R. 1270 seeks to create an interim storage facility at Yucca 
Mountain, Nevada, to temporarily store nuclear waste. Why endanger 
Americans when it is infinitely safer and seven times cheaper to keep 
this waste on site?

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