[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 84 (Tuesday, June 17, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S5884]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          EXPLANATION OF VOTES ON THE NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY ACT

 Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, on Wednesday, April 10, the Senate 
once again turned to consideration of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. 
This legislation, Senate bill 104, is the latest attempt to force 
action on the long overdue construction of a Federal, spent nuclear 
waste depository. A centralized waste storage facility must be located 
soon if the Department of Energy [DOE] is to have any hope of 
fulfilling its contractual obligation to collect the spent fuel stored 
at over 100 facilities around the country in the next decade.
  Michigan needs the DOE to fulfill this obligation. My State has four 
nuclear plants: Big Rock in Charlevoix, Fermi in Monroe, Palisades in 
Southhaven, with 2 reactors, and DC Cook in Southhaven. All four of 
these plants were designed with some small storage capacity, but a 
couple of years ago, Palisades ran out of spent fuel pool storage 
space. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act will mandate the removal and 
storage of this spent fuel at a safe, central facility.
  The first amendment to S. 104 was a Reid amendment stipulating that 
no waste may be transported through a State without the prior written 
consent of that State's Governor. In effect, this amendment would have 
permitted any Governor to block the implementation of the Nuclear Waste 
Policy Act and impede the safe storage of nuclear waste. I supported, 
therefore, the tabling motion which passed by a 72 to 24 margin.
  The Thompson amendment which was considered next sought to exempt Oak 
Ridge, TN, from being considered as an interim waste site should the 
President search for a location other than Yucca Mountain. In general, 
I do not like the idea of deleting from consideration particular sites 
without a debate on the matter. This site, however, lies in a 
geological zone comprised primarily of limestone bedrock that is 
frequently riven by shallow underground rivers. As such, the risk of 
contaminated waste leaking into the area's water table is too great for 
this site to be a reasonable replacement for the Yucca Mountain site. 
For that reason, I supported the Thompson amendment and it passed on a 
60 to 33 vote.
  The Bumpers amendment that followed was a sense of the Senate 
resolution stating that the Department of Energy had an unavoidable 
delay in its contractual obligations to begin taking possession of 
spent fuel in 1998. If passed, this resolution could have undermined 
the current lawsuit which has been filed by Michigan and 34 other 
States against the DOE for not taking this waste in the agreed to time. 
For that reason, I opposed this resolution. The great majority of my 
colleagues agreed with me, and the resolution failed on a 24 to 69 
vote.
  The next amendment, a Bingaman effort to eliminate the language to 
exempt Oak Ridge, TN, from consideration as an interim site, failed by 
a 36 to 56 margin. As I have noted, this site is not a suitable interim 
storage site, and I voted against the Bingaman measure.
  The second Bingaman amendment which was considered sought to 
eliminate the default provision for designating an interim storage 
site. The legislation as passed gives the President the authority to 
declare whether Yucca Mountain is a suitable interim storage site. If 
the President says it is not, he has 18 months to identify a new 
interim site. If, however, the President does not designate another 
facility within that time, then Yucca Mountain becomes the interim site 
by default. The Bingaman amendment would have changed this. Had it 
passed, the President could have rejected Yucca Mountain and then 
simply refused to identify another interim site. The end result would 
be years of lost time, millions of wasted taxpayer dollars, and a 
return to the present, untenable situation. I opposed the Bingaman 
amendment for this reason and supported the motion to table which 
passed 59 to 39.
  The final amendments to be considered were a Domenici amendment and a 
Murkowski second degree amendment. The bill as written could have been 
considered to allow a waiver on a budget point of order. The Domenici 
amendment clarified and reinstated existing law, which does not permit 
waiving a point of order prospectively.
  The Murkowski second degree to the Domenici amendment was a technical 
fix that capped the annual fee for each civilian nuclear powerplant at 
1.0 mill per kilowatt-hour. The original provisions limiting user fees 
to 1.0 mill per kilowatt-hour were poorly worded. With the budgetary 
fix provided by the Domenici amendment, this provision was restored.
  I supported the Murkowski amendment and it was adopted by a 66 to 32 
vote. Shortly after, the Senate passed the Domenici amendment as 
modified by a voice vote.
  Upon the disposition of these amendments, the Senate turned to final 
passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Once again, I voted in favor 
of this important act and was pleased to see it pass by a 65 to 34 
margin.

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