[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 150 (Friday, October 31, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11536-S11537]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY ACT OF 1997

  Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, yesterday, in perhaps the most 
antienvironmental vote of the Congress, the House of Representatives 
passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997. Like the Senate bill that 
passed earlier this year, the House bill unfairly targets Nevada, a 
State with no nuclear reactors, as the final destination for 80,000 
metric tons of high-level nuclear waste produced by the U.S. commercial 
nuclear utilities, most of which are located in the East.
  The central feature of the bill passed by the House yesterday, like 
the Senate bill, is the establishment of so-called interim storage of 
high-level commercial nuclear waste at the Nevada test site, about 80 
miles north of the metropolitan Las Vegas area, an area that comprises 
some 1 million citizens.
  Like its Senate counterpart, the House bill tramples on decades of 
environmental policy, ignores public health and safety and exposes the 
American taxpayer to billions of dollars in cost to solve the private 
industry's waste problem.
  Fortunately, the President has indicated that he will veto either 
version of this misguided legislation. We have secured the votes in the 
Senate to sustain President Clinton's veto.
  While yesterday's House vote falls slightly short of the number 
required to sustain a veto in the House, we are still within striking 
distance of the required number, and I believe that in the end this 
bill has little or no chance of becoming law.
  As I have discussed many times here on the Senate floor, the nuclear 
power industry's legislation is nothing but corporate pork, plain and 
simple. It is a bailout for a dying industry at the expense of both the 
pocketbooks and the health and safety of the American public.
  Nevada, as the industry's chosen destination for its waste, has 
obvious objections to this legislation. But, Mr. President, other 
regions are also rightfully concerned with the potential impact on 
their citizens. Under this legislation, in just a few short years, 
16,000 shipments of toxic, high-level nuclear waste will be transported 
by rail and highway through 43 States. More than 50 million Americans 
live within 1 mile of the proposed rail and truck routes.
  The bill requires the transportation of waste through many of our 
largest

[[Page S11537]]

metropolitan centers and provides no assurance that funds will be 
available to provide training and equipment for emergency responders.
  Moreover, the bill makes a mockery of our Nation's environmental 
protection laws. It ignores the National Environmental Protection Act 
and would take precedence over nearly every local, State or Federal 
environmental statute or ordnance, including, among others, the Clean 
Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and many 
more. It establishes radiation protection standards far lower than in 
any other Federal program and in complete contradiction to 
internationally accepted thresholds.
  The bill provides little or no public input or comment by affected 
communities or individuals and establishes a whole new set of 
unreachable deadlines, repeating the very mistakes Congress made in 
1982 with the original Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
  All of this--the trampling of our environmental laws, the billions of 
dollars in subsidy to the nuclear power industry, and the grave threat 
to the health and safety of millions of Americans--is completely 
unnecessary. Nuclear utilities can and do store waste safely on site at 
reactors. In fact, the very same storage technology that the 
legislation contemplates using at the Nevada test site is currently 
used at reactor sites around the country, with many more sites soon to 
follow. No reactor in the United States has ever closed for lack of 
storage.
  Despite the scare tactics of the nuclear power industry, there is no 
storage crisis. Objective scientific experts agree that there is no 
storage crisis. The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an 
independent oversight board created by the Congress, found in March of 
1996, and repeated again this year, that there is no compelling 
technical or safety reason to move spent fuel to a centralized interim 
facility for the next few years. Nevertheless, the nuclear power 
industry has been relentless in its efforts to move its waste to Nevada 
as soon as humanly possible, no matter what the consequences.
  Mr. President, we will continue to do whatever we can to stop this 
legislation from passing. With a firm veto threat in place and without 
the votes to override the veto, I encourage the leadership of both the 
Senate and the House of Representatives to stop this exercise in 
futility. Stop wasting Congress' time on ill-founded legislation that 
stands little or no chance of being enacted.
  The American people deserve more from us than wasting our time on 
billion-dollar subsidies for an industry that has spent too long 
already at the public trough.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and 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. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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