[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 10 (Tuesday, February 8, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S480-S482]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY AMENDMENTS ACT OF 1999--Continued

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is my understanding the matter before the 
Senate today is the amendments to the Nuclear Policy Act of 1999; is 
that the matter we are on?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is correct.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, when I was a young man, I used to box. I 
fought in the ring. I can remember as a 20-year-old, I thought I was in 
pretty good shape. I weighed 160 pounds or thereabouts. I had trained 
for a fight near the place where they were building the Glen Canyon 
Dam, which forms Lake Powell. I was ready to go and had trained for 
this fight. I arrived there and was told the opponent was not going to 
fight, so I would not be able to fight that night. I was very 
disappointed.
  A manager came out and said: We have somebody here who could fight 
you, but he has no experience. I know how badly you would like to 
fight, so if you agree to kind of take it easy on him, I will go ahead 
and let him fight. He is a little bigger than you are, but I am sure 
everything will be fine if you take it easy on him.
  Mr. President, he worked me over really good. It was one of the worst 
beatings I ever took. It was the first time I had ever had broken ribs 
from a fight.
  The reason I mention this story is, I have learned since then that if 
you are going to have a fight, you have to know the rules, you have to 
know whom you are fighting. Ever since then, I have never gotten into a 
fight unless I pretty well understood who the opponent was.
  With the matter now before the Senate, I am having some difficulty 
finding out who the opponent is. We had been told there was going to be 
an amendment last Friday. We got an amendment last Friday, but it was 
not the one we thought it was going to be.
  I say to everyone within the sound of my voice, whatever happens in 
the Senate these next few days on the matter that is now before the 
Senate, S. 1287, it is not the bill that directs nuclear waste to go to 
the State of Nevada. If nothing happens in this Chamber regarding S. 
1287, as we speak, there is characterization taking place at Yucca 
Mountain to determine if, in fact, Yucca Mountain is suitable for a 
nuclear repository. At a time subsequent, the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission will make a determination as to whether or not Yucca 
Mountain is suitable to be licensed.
  It does not matter what we do today, tomorrow, the next day, or 
whenever we finish S. 1287. Characterization is still taking place; the 
decision on licensing the site is up to the NRC.
  What is happening in S. 1287 is the same thing that has happened in 
the last 4 or 5 years with interim storage. The very powerful nuclear 
industry wants to short-circuit the system, wants to do an end run 
around the system, wants to speed up the disposal of nuclear waste. 
Good sense dictated, and the President of the United States said he 
would veto the interim storage bill.
  As a result, interim storage is no longer an issue we are debating, 
for that I am very grateful. I appreciate the chairman of the full 
committee taking another approach. That approach is S. 1287. I say to 
everyone in the Senate and others within the sound of my voice that S. 
1287, unfortunately, is still an attempt to short-circuit the system. 
It is not the mass outage that interim storage would have caused, but 
it is still a short-circuit.
  What does this bill do? Originally, the main purpose was to take the 
Environmental Protection Agency out of the business of setting 
standards for radiation at Yucca Mountain. Again, the President issued 
a veto statement and said: If that is in there, I am going to veto this 
bill.
  There have been conversations between the chairman and the ranking 
member that that is going to be taken out of the legislation and EPA 
will still be in the driver's seat. We were told just the other day one 
of the standards in it was, you could not take nuclear waste through 
Colorado. We understand that may be taken out of the bill.
  The point I am making is this, we do not yet know what the vehicle 
is. We do not yet know whom we are going to be fighting. By the way, 
the man I fought in Kanab, Utah was named

[[Page S481]]

Swaderski. I never forget that name. I do not know if this is a 
Swaderski or it is something else. Until the Senators from Nevada and 
the rest of the Senate have an idea of what is going to be the vehicle 
we are going to be debating, what the amendment is, we are at a real 
loss as to how we should proceed.
  We have other problems with S. 1287, but the main problem is with the 
nuclear radiation standards we have talked about.
  There are all kinds of things which at the right time we can talk 
about in some detail--about radiation protection, what the standard 
should be. What we have not talked about at all, and which we certainly 
need to talk about, is not only the radiation standard generally, but a 
radiation standard for children.
  For example, I did a lot of work on lead abatement. Lead in the 
environment is dangerous to adults, but not as dangerous and it is 
disastrous to children. Little children's nervous systems cannot take 
lead. Most of the work we did with lead abatement was directed toward 
children.
  As with lead, radiation more drastically affects children than it 
does adults, and this is something about which we will have the 
opportunity to speak at a subsequent time--the risk to children.
  We are learning a lot about ground water protection as it relates to 
radiation. We know that ground water must be protected. There is such a 
shortage of it in Nevada and especially in the Yucca Mountain area. We 
want to make sure that ground water which we believe flows into the 
Amargosa aquifer is something that is not going to be damaged.
  We know during the last 3 years we have had a significant number of 
very serious earthquakes at Yucca Mountain. We can talk about this in 
some detail, but it is something that goes to the ultimate licensing of 
this repository.
  The cost of the program is in the billions of dollars. We were told 
originally it would cost $200 million to do the characterization for 
three sites, a total of $600 million. For just Yucca Mountain alone, we 
are now over $7 billion for the characterization. There has been a loss 
of confidence. We have various organizations that are concerned.
  I have heard people come to the Senate floor and talk about, how they 
are taking care of nuclear waste in Europe. That is really not quite 
true. They are having all kinds of difficulty transporting the nuclear 
waste. Of course, those are very small countries. Here in the United 
States, we are talking about transporting nuclear waste not hundreds of 
miles, as they have had difficulty doing in the European countries, but 
transporting waste for thousands and thousands of miles. That is 
something we need to talk about. We need to discuss the loss of public 
confidence in how we handle nuclear waste. Of course, transportation, 
as I have just mentioned, is a very serious problem.

  Senator Bryan and I have had the good fortune of being able to travel 
to St. Louis, Denver, and a number of other places. But to take those 
two places alone, we met with the city council in both of those 
entities, and they immediately passed resolutions saying they did not 
want nuclear waste in their cities and counties. If people know how 
dangerous it is to transport nuclear waste, they, of course, do not 
want it.
  Nuclear waste has to be transported either by truck or by train. In 
years past, we have talked on this floor in great detail about how 
dangerous the transportation of anything is but especially something 
that is the most poisonous substance known to man--plutonium.
  Terrorist threat: We have recognized there is a terrorist threat with 
respect to transporting nuclear waste. The sad part about it is, this 
is something that does not seem to concern some people. They simply 
want to have a repository and will worry about how to transport it at a 
later time.
  We have a lot to talk about in relation to this legislation. But 
until we get a bill, until we know who we are fighting, and not only 
who we are fighting but the whole context of the fight, we are not in a 
position to work in detail to improve this legislation.
  There will be amendments filed by the deadline tonight by some. I 
think the Senators from Nevada, based on the situation now before us, 
are not going to file amendments because this legislation is such that 
we do not know what amendments should be offered based upon the Record, 
which is now before us.
  Cloture has been filed on the underlying bill, S. 1287. At a 
subsequent time, we are going to have to take a look at that to 
determine whether or not we are going to ask our colleagues to support 
us in relation to the cloture motion, whether or not we should be for 
or against that.
  I hope there can be a distribution of the proposed amendment at a 
rapid time so our staffs can have an opportunity to look at it. At this 
stage, there is an amendment out there somewhere, but it has not been 
given to our offices. We are having difficulty understanding what the 
amendment is. It is a moving target, to say the least. It keeps 
changing. Until that is defined, I think we are going to have a great 
deal of difficulty talking to the White House as to whether or not this 
legislation is in keeping with fairness, equity; whether the rulemaking 
power of this administration is being jeopardized.
  We do know one of the provisions in the bill is to make sure this 
decision made by the EPA is not going to be made until the next 
Presidential election, for obvious reasons; that is, the proponents of 
this bill are hoping that a Republican will be elected because Vice 
President Gore has been a stalwart on this, recognizing the 
environmental dangers of what has been attempted by those people who 
want to jam nuclear waste not only down the throat of Nevada but expose 
all the people along the transportation routes to Nevada.
  So, again, at such time as we get this legislation, I will come back 
and revisit the legislation. At this time, I have no legislation to 
visit and will have to wait until a subsequent time to make that 
determination as to how the legislation affects the State of Nevada and 
the country.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). The clerk will call the 
roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I just listened to the statement of my 
good friend from Nevada. I thought perhaps I could contribute something 
meaningful to our consideration by trying to explain some of the 
procedure that we have run into and the rationale behind the process.
  As the Senator from Nevada indicated, last Friday we were able to 
supply the amendment which was acknowledged by the minority. In my 
numerous conversations with the minority and the ranking member of the 
committee, it became necessary to consider making changes. We have been 
in constant consultation with the ranking member and professional staff 
to try to see if we could reach an accommodation on the suggested 
changes that have been primarily communicated to us by the Senator from 
New Mexico.
  It was not the intention to do an end run, by any means, on my good 
friends from Nevada. But it was an effort to try to advance, if you 
will, the continuing negotiations. That situation has been changing. In 
my opinion, the goalposts have been moved a little bit, but I am not 
going to argue the merits of that.
  We have been talking about various aspects. I think it is a fair 
characterization by my friend from Nevada to say that if you do not 
know who you are fighting, it is pretty hard to know what the rules 
are--or words to that effect.
  We have to file the amendments prior to 6 o'clock. There obviously is 
going to be one more chapter and verse to this. I assume the two 
Senators from Nevada are conversing with the minority and are a part of 
this process.
  But, in any event, that is the best explanation I can offer as to why 
this thing has not remained somewhat stationary but has been moving, as 
we have tried to accommodate certain concerns that have been brought 
up, many of which have been quite germane and appropriate.

[[Page S482]]

  One of the things that I think we should identify is something that I 
had been under the impression the Secretary of Energy was addressing; 
that was the concern of a number of Governors. I will read the names of 
those Governors. They include Governor Jeb Bush of Florida; Governor 
Howard Dean of Vermont; Governor Angus King, an independent, from 
Maine; Governor John Kitzhaber of Oregon; Governor Jeanne Shaheen of 
New Hampshire; Governor Jesse Ventura of Minnesota; and Governor Tom 
Vilsack of Iowa. Let me share with my friends what those Governors have 
said:

       We Governors from states hosting commercial nuclear power 
     plants and from affected states express our opposition to the 
     plan proposed by Energy Secretary Richardson in his February 
     1999 testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources 
     committee. Secretary Richardson proposes that the Department 
     of Energy take title, assume management responsibility, 
     and pay costs at nuclear plant sites for used nuclear fuel 
     it was legally and contractually obliged to begin removing 
     in January 1998. This proposed plan would create 
     semipermanent, federally controlled, used nuclear fuel 
     facilities in each of our States.

  I think it is rather ironic that the whole argument we previously had 
the last time we took up this legislation was whether or not to site a 
temporary repository in Nevada. The fear of the Nevadans is, if we 
started to move this waste out there, Nevada would be the proclaimed 
site for the waste because it had already moved out there, even though 
the process of licensing was to continue. Here we have the States 
expressing the same concern Nevada had when the Nevadans argued against 
putting a temporary repository in their State and shipping the fuel out 
before Yucca Mountain was licensed.
  Here are the Governors saying:

       This proposed plan would create semi-permanent, federally 
     controlled, used nuclear fuel facilities in each of our 
     States.

  They have the same fear. The fear is that if the Government takes 
title, the waste will sit there in their States. Now, there is some 
rationale in that fear because the Government certainly hasn't been 
upfront in addressing its responsibility, in contractual terms, to take 
the waste in 1998. It seems as if the Government is prepared to leave 
the waste wherever it might be rather than accept it. That is the only 
conclusion you can come to, as evidenced by the reluctance to take it 
in 1998, the reluctance to support previous legislation that would put 
that waste in a temporary repository at Yucca Mountain until Yucca 
Mountain was determined to be licensed. So now the fear is that these 
States are going to be stuck with that waste because the Federal 
Government is going to take control of it in their State, and it will 
sit there.
  Let me cite the specific reasons for the opposition of these 
Governors. Again, they are Jeb Bush, Republican from Florida; Howard 
Dean, Democrat from Vermont; Angus King, Independent from Maine; John 
Kitzhaber, Democrat from Oregon; Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat from New 
Hampshire; Jesse Ventura, the Reform Governor from Minnesota; Tom 
Vilsack, Democrat from Iowa. That is a pretty broad bipartisan group. 
In the letter, it says:

       Specific reasons for our opposition are:
       The plan proposes to use our electric consumer monies which 
     were paid to the Federal Government for creating a final 
     disposal repository for used nuclear fuel. Such funds cannot 
     [in their opinion] legally be used for any other purpose than 
     a Federal repository.

  Well, if that is correct, then that is correct, they can't be used to 
store the fuel in those States next to the reactors.
  Further, it states:

       This plan abridges States' rights. . . .

  I think we need to hear a little bit more about States' rights around 
here.

       [I]t constitutes Federal takings and establishes new 
     nuclear waste facilities outside of State authority and 
     control.

  Yet within their very States.

       These new Federal nuclear waste facilities would be on 
     river fronts, lakes and seashores [where the plants are] 
     which would never be chosen for permanent disposal of used 
     nuclear fuel and in a site selection process.
       The plan constitutes a major Federal action--

  I think it does--

     which has not gone through the National Environmental Policy 
     Act (NEPA) review process.

  So the administration is circumventing NEPA.
  Further:

       The new waste facilities would likely become de facto 
     permanent [waste] disposal sites.

  This is the crux of it, Mr. President. They say:

       Federal action over the last 50 years has not been able to 
     solve the political problems associated with developing 
     disposal for used nuclear fuel. Establishing these Federal 
     sites will remove the political motivation to complete a 
     final disposal site.

  The letter to the President concludes with:

       We urge you to retract Secretary Richardson's proposed plan 
     and instead support establishing centralized interim storage 
     at an appropriate site. This concept has strong, bipartisan 
     support and results in the environmentally preferable, least-
     cost solution to the used nuclear fuel dilemma.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used all his time.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. 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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