[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 167 (Thursday, November 3, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H7266-H7267]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             YUCCA MOUNTAIN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Woodall). The Chair recognizes the 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, everyone knows that 
Washington isn't very popular right now, and a big reason why is that 
too often our leaders make decisions that lack common sense. When we 
need to cut spending, Washington finds a way to spend more. When we 
need to create jobs, Washington piles on new regulations that put 
Americans out of work. When we spend billions of dollars to create a 
safe, permanent storage facility for our country's nuclear waste, 
politics gets in the way, and that facility is shut down.
  Like millions of Americans across the country, I'm tired that 
politics is getting in the way, and I'm looking to bring some common 
sense back to this Republic.
  And as you know, Mr. Speaker, there's no better example of putting 
politics before country than the case of Yucca Mountain. Yucca Mountain 
is a multibillion-dollar project that was supposed to be the solution 
for storing our country's nuclear materials. Ratepayers in States like 
South Carolina, ratepayers like my constituents, have poured billions 
of dollars into the development of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear 
repository.
  Mr. Speaker, this administration needs to understand that America 
runs by the rule of law, and depositing our nuclear waste at Yucca 
Mountain is the law of the land. This administration does not get to 
make willy-nilly decisions to benefit supporters without congressional 
approval. And when Congress spoke, in the National Waste Policy Act, it 
made Yucca Mountain the law of the land.
  I was deeply disappointed when the Presidential candidates were 
recently asked about Yucca Mountain. I was astonished that these good 
folks would echo the failed rhetoric of Senator Harry Reid. And I would 
remind all the Presidential candidates of the Federal Government's 
promise to construct a long-term storage facility for the legacy 
weapons materials temporarily being stored in South Carolina. And I 
would remind them that this is the law of the land. I suspect that many 
South Carolina voters, including myself, will expect to hear the 
Presidential candidates' plan to solve this problem during their next 
visit to the Palmetto State.

                              {time}  1110

  But let's talk about the states' rights aspect of this. Where is 
South Carolina's right to be rid of this waste? This is a federally 
created problem, the residual waste of our Cold War weapons programs. 
Whole towns in my district were relocated by the Federal Government to 
create the Savannah River site. I'm not saying that we don't want the 
Savannah River site to continue the important nuclear nonproliferation 
work of the Nation. And I commend NNSA's recent announcement concerning 
the conversion of some of the plutonium material into mixed oxide fuel 
for commercial reactors. What I am saying is that the Nation needs to 
do right by South Carolina and fulfill the promise to take care of the 
radioactive waste and get it out of our State.
  Yucca Mountain is a geologically stable location; it's the right 
location for the job. It doesn't get much rain, it's in the middle of 
nowhere; and when it does rain, the arid climate evaporates the water. 
But let's take, for instance, that it may rain a lot one day. For 
leakage to happen at Yucca Mountain would require that little bit of 
water that doesn't evaporate to transpose through a thousand feet of 
granite-like rock. And then it's going to get to our concrete vault, 
and inside that concrete vault are stainless steel canisters. So the 
water erodes and transfers through a thousand feet of granite rock, 
through the concrete, through the stainless steel, and it comes in 
contact with radioactive glass, glassified material that it's got to 
erode. And then the water has to transfer that material through more 
stainless steel, through more concrete, through another thousand feet 
of nonporous rock, down to an aquifer that is a closed system.
  This is why Yucca Mountain is the right place to do the job. No one 
thinks that rolling fields next to a river that is a water source for 
two States, as it is at Savannah River site, is a long-term answer to 
nuclear waste disposal. The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can 
deal with the real problem.
  Now the Department of Energy's blue ribbon commission is circulating 
a draft report on the future of America's nuclear waste, including the 
nuclear waste currently being temporarily stored at the Savannah River 
site. The Savannah River site can only be a short-term home for this 
waste. The best long-term outlook for the waste of this sort is in a 
deep geological site, hence the need for Yucca Mountain. The waste 
stored at Savannah River site can be processed for a number of 
purposes, but ultimately this waste needs to go deep underground.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge representative Lee Hamilton and General Brent 
Scowcroft, the cochairs of the blue ribbon commission, to reconsider 
their draft report to include Yucca Mountain as the long-term disposal 
site that Congress mandated.
  Americans have already given billions of dollars to the State of 
Nevada for the construction of a safe, long-term storage site for 
nuclear material. President Obama and Senator Reid shouldn't be able to 
have it both ways; Nevada must either rebate the billions of dollars 
already spent on Yucca Mountain or stand out of the way and allow the 
facility to open for business. It would create jobs in the State of 
Nevada. South Carolina has unfairly carried the burden for storing 
nuclear material for decades already. It's time for this waste to move 
on.

[[Page H7267]]

  May God continue to bless America.

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