[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 177 (Friday, November 18, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H7877]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             YUCCA MOUNTAIN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Landry). 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, I come down to the floor once a week to 
talk about the high level of nuclear waste in this country and the fact 
that this country still doesn't have a single repository to store high-
level nuclear waste.
  Throughout this last year, I've talked about Hanford, Washington, 
which has multiple gallons of high-level nuclear waste. I then went to 
Zion nuclear power plant right off Lake Michigan to talk about its 
nuclear waste right next to the lake. A couple of weeks ago, I went to 
Savannah, Georgia, to talk about the Savannah River and the nuclear 
power plant that sits right next to the river. Then I went to the 
Pacific Ocean between Los Angeles and San Diego, San Onofre, where 
there's a nuclear power plant right on the Pacific Ocean.
  Today I take the Nation to Idaho, where Idaho National Laboratory is 
located, comparing this site, as I do weekly, to the fine location 
under Federal law in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act which is Yucca 
Mountain.
  Look at what we have at Idaho National Laboratory. At the national 
labs we have 5,090 canisters of nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain, none. At 
Idaho, the waste is stored above ground and in pools. At Yucca 
Mountain, the waste would be stored 1,000 feet from the surface of the 
ground. At Idaho, the waste would be 500 feet above the water table. At 
Yucca Mountain, the waste would be 1,000 feet above the water table. 
Idaho National Laboratory, 50 miles from Yellowstone Park; Yucca 
Mountain, the waste would be 100 miles from the Colorado River.
  Now, why is it important to address these different locations of 
high-level nuclear waste across the country? Because there's 104 
nuclear reactors in this country, not including all of the high-level 
nuclear waste that we have at our defense labs, our DOE labs, and the 
like.
  So what this country needs to understand is there's nuclear waste all 
over the place and next to major population centers and next to major 
water reserves.
  What I've also done in coming down here has been to highlight how do 
the Senators from the States that surround the Idaho nuclear lab--what 
are their positions? And their positions are as follows.
  Senator Barrasso from Wyoming is a supporter of Yucca Mountain and 
has stated that the end result of this saga is a 5-mile long, 25-foot-
wide hole in the Nevada desert. It was meant to store America's nuclear 
waste but instead, because of politics, it stands as a monument to 
bureaucratic waste of taxpayer dollars.
  What does Senator Enzi say, who's also supported and voted for Yucca 
Mountain in 2002? ``In his campaign, President Obama promised change. 
He promised politics wouldn't interfere when sound science spoke. I'm 
disappointed that his Yucca Mountain policy ignores that campaign 
promise.''
  Mike Crapo voted ``yes'' for Yucca Mountain, and he's disappointed in 
the administration.
  And the new Senator from Idaho, Senator Risch, says:
  ``The President's decision to kill the Nation's congressionally 
directed repository for high-level nuclear waste as a favor to one 
State is politics at its worst. The Administration's decision to 
knowingly undermine their commitments to Idaho and 33 other States with 
no clear alternative cannot stand. This has become a hallmark of this 
administration, first with the Guantanamo prison site and now Yucca 
Mountain--to jump without knowing where they are going to land.''

                              {time}  1420

  The other thing I've been doing has just been highlighting, as I've 
been taking the country through the high-level nuclear waste areas 
around this country: Where are the Senators based upon their past votes 
or current statements?
  Right now, we have 17 Senators in support; we have three in 
opposition; and we have four who really have no defined positions as of 
yet. Senator Feinstein, of course, has spoken in opposition to Yucca 
Mountain; but with Fukushima Daiichi and with the fact that she has 
nuclear power plants on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, I think she is 
reevaluating that position.
  We need 60 votes in the Senate to move forward and to finish the 
science on Yucca Mountain so that, by Federal law, Yucca Mountain 
becomes the single repository for high-level nuclear waste in this 
country.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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