[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 160 (Thursday, October 2, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Page S10458]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             NUCLEAR POWER

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I don't want to repeat what has already 
been said by Senator Voinovich recently, but I do want to explain why I 
am cosponsoring legislation designed to tackle in a comprehensive way 
the biggest issue still outstanding in our efforts to revitalize 
nuclear power for this Nation, that being how we handle the waste.
  I also want to talk about the retirement of the ranking member of the 
Senate Energy Committee, Senator Pete Domenici, who I will so deeply 
miss in the future.
  Concerning the nuclear bill, I am cosponsoring the U.S. Nuclear Fuel 
Management Corporation Establishment Act that has been crafted by 
Senator Voinovich, with Senator Sessions and a number of other 
Senators, and I have already cosponsored the SMART Act, which was 
crafted by the ranking member of the Energy Committee, Senator 
Domenici, and cosponsored by Senator Sessions and others, since the two 
bills work together to set up the policy and the management structure 
to improve how we handle the waste that nuclear powerplants generate.
  While it is obviously too late in this session of Congress for either 
bill to advance, I want to say that I am certainly intending to help 
reintroduce both bills next year and in working next session to merge 
them into a comprehensive plan to recycle and then properly store the 
remaining waste that results from nuclear power production.
  I am interested in working on these bills because I care about 
reducing greenhouse gases. And nuclear power is the best proven 
technology to produce power for this country without producing any 
carbon emissions. For anyone serious about tackling carbon emissions, 
finding a way to grow the next generation of nuclear power is vital.
  Today nuclear energy provides about 20 percent of the Nation's 
electricity. As Senator Voinovich may have mentioned those 104 
operating powerplants save America from producing about 681 million 
metric tons a year of carbon dioxide. If we are going to deal with 
global warming, we must find a way not just to keep nuclear power 
going, but also growing to help meet this Nation's growing thirst for 
electricity.
  I was in France in late June and toured the French nuclear waste 
recycling facilities at LaHague. Recycling allows you to gain twice as 
much nuclear power from a given amount of uranium ore. More 
importantly, it cuts substantially the amount and the half-life, and in 
some cases, the toxicity of the waste that you later have to store. 
That is important for the environment.
  In these two bills, the Nuclear Fuel Management Corp. will set up a 
Government corporation to take authority to manage spent nuclear fuel 
and provide both interim storage, the development of geologic 
repositories, such as the Yucca Mountain facility currently under 
consideration, and also to handle the construction and operation of any 
reprocessing and fuel fabrication facilities.
  The SMART bill is designed to further the process of siting and 
advancing the construction of up to two reprocessing plants, since it 
would help to encourage cities in this country to welcome such plants. 
These bills, perhaps pared with one introduced last year to remove some 
potential regulatory hurdles to construction and opening of a Yucca 
Mountain repository, would effectively amount to a comprehensive 
solution to the waste issue. They would be the final pieces to the 
puzzle. That is the case because of the efforts of Senator Pete 
Domenici.

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