[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 93 (Tuesday, June 19, 2012)]
[House]
[Page H3739]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             YUCCA MOUNTAIN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to my Republican 
colleagues talk about the Constitution and how a bill becomes a law.
  I taught freshman civics. And when a bill passes both Chambers, the 
bill then goes to the President. The President then signs a bill. It 
becomes a law. The job of the Chief Executive is to enforce the law, as 
signed and as passed.
  Like the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, it is the law of the land. 
The amendments passed in 1987 identified Yucca Mountain as the sole 
geological repository for nuclear waste in this country. The problem 
is, it's not being enforced by the President, who is complicit with the 
majority leader in the Senate, Senator Reid, in stopping the project.
  So over the past year, I have been coming down to the floor and 
identifying where we're at on the status of what do we do with high-
level nuclear waste. And I have gone through the whole country. I have 
identified all the Senators and where they stand. We actually have a 
majority of Senators--55 of them--who support high-level nuclear waste 
being stored at Yucca Mountain. We have 23 that either have made 
statements of ``no'' or 22 that we don't know their position. Can you 
imagine being a U.S. Senator on a very important position, never having 
to state your position on what to do with high-level nuclear waste or 
defense waste, especially if it's in your own State, and never being 
forced to come to a position.
  Over the past year, we've been going around the country identifying 
all these locations. And now the time for truth has come, to really 
start narrowing down on individual States and Senators who should at 
least state their position.
  So I return to my next-door neighbor State, the State of Missouri. I 
live in the St. Louis metropolitan area. I represent parts of 30 
counties in southern Illinois. But I am very close to the State of 
Missouri. In fact, I root for the Cardinals, the Rams, the Blues. And 
if the University of Missouri's not playing the Fighting Illini, I'll 
root for the Missouri Tigers.
  Missouri has a nuclear power plant called Callaway. And what I did 
months ago, I came down on the floor--these are old posters--and 
compared Callaway to Yucca Mountain. Right now, Callaway has 615 metric 
tons of uranium spent fuel on site; Yucca has none. Waste would be 
stored 1,000 feet underground; waste is being stored in pools above 
ground. Waste would be 1,000 feet from the water table; at Callaway, 
it's 65 feet above the groundwater. At Yucca, the waste would be 100 
miles from the Colorado River; at Callaway, it's only 5 miles from the 
Missouri River.
  So the State of Missouri needs an answer by their elected Members of 
what should they do, how should we handle the nuclear waste at 
Callaway? Well, Senator Blunt has already stated his position that he 
supports moving nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. In fact, in a floor 
vote just 2 weeks ago, eight of the nine Members of Congress--a 
bipartisan majority--said nuclear waste should be in Yucca Mountain, or 
at least we should finish the scientific study to see if it's feasible 
versus keeping it in Missouri. The Members of the House who voted in 
support of the Shimkus amendment were Representative Akin, 
Representative Clay, Representative Cleaver, Representative Emerson, 
Representative Graves, Representative Hartzler, Representative Long, 
and Representative Luetkemeyer. Of course we know Senator Blunt 
supports it.
  Now we focus on Senator McCaskill. This is no surprise to her--I've 
talked to her personally about this--that there would be a time when 
eventually she needs to state, does she support high-level nuclear 
waste being stored in Missouri? Does she support a long-term geological 
storage underneath a mountain in a desert in Nevada?

                              {time}  1040

  If she would make a statement, we could then move her from the 
undecided to either a nay or a yea. And if a yea, that would bring us 
to 56. We're actually trying to see if we can get 60 United States 
Senators to say, Yeah, we support moving forward. We've only spent $15 
billion, going back to 1982, to prepare, locate the site.
  Yucca Mountain is not just a mountain on its own but it's at the 
nuclear test site. It's bigger than the State of Rhode Island, the 
Federal grounds. It's Federal property. And so we come down on the 
floor--and we'll be doing this in the following weeks--highlighting 
individual Senators who are either undecided, no commitment, no 
position on what should be the disposition of high-level nuclear waste 
in their State, where it should go, and at least get them on the record 
as far as this issue.
  Again, this law was passed in 1982. The amendment passed identifying 
Yucca Mountain as the long-term geological repository was then signed 
in 1987. We would just ask the administration to follow the law.

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