[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18114-18115]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I rise to address an issue that is of 
great concern to the people of my State, and, I think beyond the 
parochial issue, the people of the country as a whole.
  Private Fuels Storage is in the process of seeking a license to store 
nuclear waste on the Goshute Indian Reservation in the State of Utah. 
Their application seeks a 20-year license with the option of extending 
it for an additional 20 years. This is being described as an ``interim 
storage'' place for nuclear waste. I have been silent on this issue up 
until now. But I have decided to take the floor and announce my 
opposition to this storage for two reasons, which I will outline. One 
is something that requires further study and might be dealt with, but 
the second and more powerful reason for my opposition is a permanent 
policy issue.
  Let me address the perhaps less important issue first. But it is an 
important issue that requires consideration; that is, the location of 
this particular site with respect to the Utah Test and Training Range.
  One of the things most Americans don't realize is that we require the 
Air Force to train over land. There are very few training ranges that 
will allow aircraft to train over land. Much of the training that takes 
place in the Armed Forces takes place over the water, but it is not the 
right kind of training experience for pilots to always have to fly over 
water.
  The Utah Test and Training Range has a long history of service to our 
Nation's military. It was there that the pilots trained for the flights 
over Tokyo in the Second World War. Indeed, it was there that the crew 
of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was trained.
  The proposal for the storage site at the Goshute Indian Reservation 
is in a location that will affect the flight pattern of Air Force 
pilots flying over the Utah Test and Training Range. I have flown that 
pattern myself in a helicopter provided by the military, and I have 
seen firsthand how close it is to the proposed nuclear waste 
repository.
  There are people at the Pentagon who have said the flight path will 
not be affected; everything is fine. I have learned during the debate 
over the base realignment and closure activity that sometimes what is 
said out of the Pentagon is more politically correct than it is 
substantively correct. I have talked to the pilots at Hill Air Force 
Base who fly that pattern, and they have told me, free of any handlers 
from the Pentagon, that they are very nervous about having a nuclear 
waste repository below military airspace that will require them to 
maneuver in a way that might cause danger, and could certainly erode 
the level of the training that they can obtain at the Utah Test and 
Training Range.
  I do not think we should move ahead with certifying this particular 
location until there has been a complete and thorough study of the 
impact of this proposal on the Utah Test and Training Range and upon 
the Air Force's ability to test its pilots.
  That, as I say, is the first reason I rise to oppose this. But it is 
a reason that is subject to study, analysis, and examination, and may 
not be a permanent reason.
  The second reason I rise to oppose this is more important, in my 
view, than the first one. I want to deal with that at greater length.
  Let us look at the history of nuclear waste storage in the United 
States. The United States decided 18 years before a deadline in 1998 
that the Department of Energy would, in 1998, take responsibility for 
the storage of nuclear waste. That means that through a number of 
administrations--Republican and Democrat--the Department of Energy has 
had 18 years to get ready to deal with this problem. Current estimates 
are that the Department of Energy is between 12 and 15 years away from 
having a permanent solution to this problem. I do not think that is an 
admirable record--to have had 18 years' notice, miss the deadline, and 
still be as much as 15 years away from it.
  The deadline is now 2 years past, and we are no closer to getting an 
intelligent long-term solution to this problem than we were. Perhaps 
that is not true. Perhaps we are closer in this sense: That a location 
has been identified. Up to $8 billion, or maybe even as much as $9 
billion, has been spent on preparing that location as a permanent 
storage site for America's nuclear waste. We are no closer politically 
to being ready for that. We perhaps are a good bit closer in terms of 
the site.
  I am referring, of course, to the proposed waste repository at Yucca 
Mountain in Nevada, on the ground that was originally set aside and 
used as the Nevada Test Site. Many times people forget that. The Nevada 
Test Site is where we tested the bombs that were dropped elsewhere, and 
the bombs went into our nuclear stockpile. So the ground at the Nevada 
Test Site has already been subjected to nuclear exposure. The seismic 
studies have been done, and Yucca Mountain has been found to be the 
most logical place to put this material on a long-term basis. Twice 
while I have been in the Congress we have voted to move ahead on that, 
and twice the President has vetoed the bills.
  Against that background comes this proposal to build an interim 
storage site in the State of Utah on the reservation of the Goshute 
Indians adjacent to the Utah Test and Training Range.
  This is my reason for opposing that so-called interim site: I do not 
believe that it will be interim. I do not believe that. If we start 
shipping nuclear material to the Goshute Reservation in Utah, that 
gives the administration and other politicians the opportunity to 
continue to delay moving ahead on Yucca Mountain.
  Now, how much Federal money has been spent preparing the Goshute 
Indian Reservation to receive this? Virtually none, compared to the 
between $8 and $9 billion that has been spent on Yucca Mountain.
  There will be one delay after another if this thing starts in Utah. 
People will say: We don't need to move ahead on Yucca Mountain; we have 
a place we can put it in the interim. The interim will become a 
century, or two centuries, while the Government continues to dither on 
the issue of Yucca Mountain.
  I am in favor of nuclear power. I believe it is safe. I believe it is 
essential to our overall energy policy. I am in favor of the Energy 
Department's fulfilling the commitment that was made in 1980 that said 
by 1998 the Department of Energy will have a permanent storage 
facility. I believe we have identified that facility through sound 
science, through expenditure of Federal funds, through every kind of 
research that can be done, and we are ignoring, for whatever political 
reason, the opportunity to solve this problem at Yucca Mountain while 
we are talking about an interim solution at the Goshute Reservation.
  It is simply not a wise public policy to say that since we cannot 
solve the

[[Page 18115]]

permanent problem, we will find a backdoor way for a stopgap interim 
solution. The stopgap interim solution will become a permanent solution 
without the plan, without the analysis, and without the expenditures 
that have already gone into the permanent solution that is available.
  Therefore, for these two reasons, I announce my opposition to the 
depository on the Goshute Reservation in Utah. I am sending a letter to 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission asking that they extend the time for 
another 120 days for public comment on their proposal to proceed with 
this license. I think the first reason that I have cited alone 
justifies that extension of time because there has not been sufficient 
analysis of the impact of this proposed facility on the Utah Test and 
Training Range. I hope in that 120-day period we can get that kind of 
analysis.
  The second more serious reason will still remain. I hope in that 120-
day period we can begin to approach that, as well.
  I thank the Senators for their courtesy in allowing me to proceed on 
this issue. It relates directly to the State of Utah, but I think in 
terms of the impact on nuclear power as a whole, it is an issue about 
which the entire Nation should be concerned.
  I yield the floor.

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