[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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