[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 143 (Friday, September 23, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H6448-H6449]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         STORING NUCLEAR WASTE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, this marks the first of what I hope to be 
many times to address you and my colleagues on an issue that I have 
been graced with having the responsibility to deal in the public policy 
arena, and that's the issue of nuclear waste.
  When people talk about nuclear waste and this debate about where it 
is and why it's there, they primarily talk about our nuclear utilities. 
Especially after Fukushima Daiichi, people understand that when you 
store high-level nuclear waste onsite and if there's a disaster that 
occurs and if the pools run dry, then you might have a melting which 
might spread radioactivity, and that's not good for anybody. That's a 
good debate to have because we have nuclear waste stored all over this 
country.
  But I'm not here really to talk about the private for-profit sector, 
the nuclear industry today. I'm here to tell another story, another 
story that really talks about why we have government and why there's 
still a need for some government entities.
  Back during World War II--and we just heard my colleague talk about 
the Honor Flights--back during World War II, we decided as a Nation to 
win these wars. One way to make sure that we wouldn't lose thousands 
upon thousands of soldiers in an invasion of Japan was to develop the 
nuclear bomb. Two were dropped; the war ended. Many people historically 
know that development, that occurred because of the Manhattan Project.
  What I think a lot of people don't know is that we still are dealing 
with much of the history of winning the war in the Manhattan Project 
and that winning the Cold War relied upon a strong military and a 
strong nuclear deterrence. So even after World War II, we continued to 
develop nuclear weapons, which we deal with today.
  So I had a chance to visit during our last district work period, I 
took a day and visited a place called Hanford, Washington. Hanford, 
Washington was part of the Manhattan Project. Hanford was the site that 
the U.S. military picked to help produce plutonium. The ``Fat Man'' 
bomb was developed there. That area was picked for a lot of reasons. 
There weren't a lot of people there. As you can see, the Columbia River 
is right next to it. You had some low-cost power production, and so it 
was a good site. And, hence, people got moved off the land, the 
government took over, and the government has been controlling hundreds 
of acres in Washington State even today.
  The result of the Cold War and winning World War II is that millions 
of gallons of nuclear waste now reside in Hanford, Washington. And I'm 
not exaggerating. In fact, 53 million gallons of nuclear waste is 
onsite. And what's interesting about Hanford, of course, when you 
started storing this nuclear waste, our technology, our information, 
our knowledge was not as great as it is now. The way we stored this 
material then would not be an acceptable process today. It is an 
environmental disaster and a hazard that has to be cleaned up.
  You have approximately 174 storage tanks. These storage tanks are 
from 750,000 gallons to a million gallons, all with nuclear waste in 
these tanks. These tanks are buried, as it says here, 10 feet 
underground and 250 feet above the water table, a mile from the 
Columbia River. Some of these tanks are leaking. It's just not a good 
thing for us to have. And so the government has been trying to deal 
with this one site of nuclear waste in this country.
  Why do I bring this before you, Mr. Speaker, and why is this 
important? Because in 1982, part of the process of dealing with Hanford 
was to pass a law.

                              {time}  1330

  The law was called the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and in that law it 
says, We've got a solution. We're going to collect all the high-level 
nuclear waste, and we have a storage facility that we're going to place 
it in. And that place is Yucca Mountain. Now, many of you may have 
heard about Yucca Mountain before. I've visited it twice. Yucca 
Mountain is in a desert, and it's a mountain. So I do the side-by-side 
comparisons here.
  Right now at Hanford we have 53 million gallons of nuclear waste on 
site. Yucca Mountain, which is a site we designed, we picked. We 
studied for decades. We spent $12.5 billion. We currently have no 
nuclear waste there.
  The nuclear waste at Hanford is stored 10 feet underground. The 
nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain would be stored a thousand feet 
underground. The nuclear waste at Hanford is 250 feet above the 
groundwater. The nuclear waste at Yucca will be stored a thousand feet 
above the water table. The nuclear waste at Hanford is a mile

[[Page H6449]]

from the Columbia River. The closest river to Yucca Mountain is the 
Colorado River, which is 100 miles away.
  I'll come back to this floor throughout the year and highlight 
different locations around the country where there's waste and start 
pleading with my colleagues to help us stop two people--the President 
of the United States and Majority Leader Harry Reid. Majority Leader 
Reid has blocked our ability to continue to move forward and take 
nuclear waste from around this country and place it underneath a 
mountain in a desert.
  This location is exhibit number 1. There is no more compelling 
location in this country that cries out for this waste to be moved than 
Hanford. In fact, in the clean-up process, the scientific design of the 
casks that will be used to clear out these 53 million gallons of waste 
and put into storage containers, they are designed specifically for 
Yucca Mountain. Again, we have spent $12.5 billion to prepare this site 
to receive nuclear waste.
  The House went on record this year on a vote in the appropriation 
bill for energy and water and said, yes, Yucca Mountain is still where 
we believe high-level nuclear waste ought to go. And that vote was 297 
Members voting to increase funding to complete the safety review of the 
DOA application so that Yucca Mountain could move forward.
  One Senator is blocking this, one Senator from the State of Nevada. 
But it's time for the other Senators from these other States who are 
affected, regardless of their party, to say, ``I don't want this high-
level nuclear waste in my State. We have a Federal law to move it to 
underneath a mountain in a desert.'' And it's time for them to stand up 
and be counted. That's why this is my first trip to the well 
identifying one location in this country, I think the most compelling 
argument for Yucca Mountain, and it's not even tied to that nuclear 
power generating for-profit industry. It is tied to our World War II 
legacy and the environment and the health of not only the land here in 
Washington State but also the great Columbia River.
  So who are we asking to stand up and be counted and help us move 
this? Well, we just happen to have four U.S. Senators, two from the 
State of Washington, two from the State of Oregon: Senator Cantwell; 
Senator Murray; Senator Wyden; and Senator Merkley.
  Now, if you look at this site, the Columbia River, those of you who 
know your geography know that the Columbia River, when it gets closer 
to the west side of the State, separates the State of Oregon and the 
State of Washington, to the north. North of the Columbia is Washington 
State, south is Oregon.
  These Senators need to step up to the plate, and these Senators need 
to do their job. They need to speak to the majority leader. We 
understand the majority leader who wants to protect the State of 
Nevada. So I'm not trying to lift mountains that I can't personally 
lift. But what I can do is start making the clarion call to Senators 
around this country who have high-level nuclear waste in their States 
when we have already spent $12.5 billion for a single repository, and 
as I've said numerous times, underneath a mountain in a desert.
  The numbers here in Washington--on the House side, we have an 
overwhelming majority. In the other body, their majority is not as big 
as it once was. And because of that, these centers are even empowered 
more to be able to go to their leader and plead for their State and 
make the compelling argument.
  Again, if you can't make it for Hanford, you can't make it for 
anywhere.
  I'm from southern Illinois. I don't have a nuclear facility in my 
congressional district, although I am from the State of Illinois, and 
Illinois is a huge nuclear power State. We have six locations, 11 
reactors. So we have high-level nuclear waste stored 40 miles from 
downtown Chicago.
  Now, does that make sense? Does that make sense in a day when we've 
already spent $12 billion to prepare, locate, research a single 
repository that can be kept safe, secure, and stored? It doesn't make 
sense.
  So that's why in the coming weeks you'll see other posters like this. 
I'll definitely keep this one. But we'll compare Yucca Mountain to 
downtown Chicago. We'll compare Yucca Mountain to Boston, 
Massachusetts. We'll compare Yucca Mountain to Savannah, Georgia.
  If you live in a State and may not have a nuclear power plant, you 
may very well have the legacy of World War II Manhattan-type projects 
and nuclear waste that has to be stored elsewhere than in the place 
where it is today.
  As the chairman of the Environment and the Economy Subcommittee, my 
congressional responsibility is that of nuclear waste. It is a 
challenge for this country. It is a challenge that we already have a 
plan to deal with. In fact, ratepayers of States that have nuclear 
power have been paying an additional charge on their utility bills to 
prepare Yucca Mountain to receive this waste.
  To have one man and a President who's complicit in his design to stop 
this is not in the best interest of this country, and I will continue 
to come down to the well to fight this fight so that we take full 
advantage of the great resources we have and follow up on the planning 
and the funding that we've done for decades to have a single 
repository.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank you, and I yield back the balance of 
my time.

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