[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 129 (Wednesday, September 29, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H8970]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 DOE IGNORES SCIENCE AT YUCCA MOUNTAIN

  (Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, just two days ago this chamber approved, 
unfortunately, $352 million for the continued development of a nuclear 
waste repository at Yucca Mountain, just north of Las Vegas, Nevada.
  On that very same day, a public hearing on that project was held in 
Las Vegas, and at this hearing numerous experts testified that the 
Department of Energy's draft impact report ignored completely the basic 
principles of sound science. And, just to make matters worse, the 
Energy Department's impact report failed to follow the law requiring 
them to consider alternatives to Yucca Mountain for storing high level 
nuclear waste. And, by the way, it did not consider the dangers of 
transporting the high level nuclear waste across America to Yucca 
Mountain.
  But these issues, by necessity, deal with sound science. Obviously 
the Energy Department is not interested in sound science.
  It does not take a scientist, Mr. Speaker, to know that funding a 
nuclear waste storage project which lacks a sound scientific rational 
is not only wasteful, but dangerous.
  I yield back the trace of all nuclear waste across this country and 
the green garbage it leaves behind.

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