[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5813]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1500
                         YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. BERKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to condemn in the strongest 
possible terms President Bush's latest attempt to resurrect the fatally 
flawed Yucca Mountain Project in my home State of Nevada.
  This past Tuesday, the White House ordered the Energy Department to 
seek reintroduction of the so-called Fix Yucca Bill.
  In a nutshell, this special interest legislation guts key safety and 
environmental rules, makes it harder for Nevadans to challenge Yucca 
Mountain, gives the green light to a water grant in the middle of the 
Nevada desert where there is no water, and increases the amount of 
deadly nuclear waste that can be buried outside of Las Vegas, a major 
metropolitan area in the western United States where 1.7 million people 
reside.
  In calling for passage of this bill, the Bush administration has 
renewed its attack on Nevada, and their goal is simple: open Yucca 
Mountain at any cost.
  Mr. Speaker, this proposal isn't about safety and it isn't about 
science. It is not about protecting our communities from shipments of 
nuclear waste. This legislation is all about using political muscle to 
ram through changes to the rules of the game in order to ensure that 
nuclear waste comes to Nevada.
  The reason they need the bill is clear: Yucca Mountain is all but 
dead as a result of scientific uncertainties, of bloated budget, and 
total mismanagement. The proposed dump is decades behind schedule and 
has already cost upwards of $12 billion according to the figures 
published this January by the General Accounting Office.
  Outgoing Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Ed McGaffigan, not exactly a 
great friend of the State of Nevada, recently said that it will take 
until 2025 or beyond before Yucca Mountain is completed. But more 
importantly, he said it is time to ``stop digging'' at Yucca Mountain 
and look at alternatives because the system that created this 
abomination is so flawed that nuclear waste will never be stored in 
Nevada.
  Clearly, this legislation, which was introduced last year and went 
absolutely nowhere, is a last ditch effort to try and bring Yucca 
Mountain back from the brink of total collapse. Make no mistake about 
it, Yucca Mountain's days are numbered. Working with my colleagues in 
the House and with my Nevada counterpart, majority leader Harry Reid, 
we will ensure that this dangerous and misguided bill never reaches the 
President's desk.
  Despite claims to the contrary, Yucca Mountain has never been proven 
safe, and there will be no way to keep thousands of shipments of 
nuclear waste secure as it travels across our roads and railways.
  Among the changes included in the White House bill is a provision 
that seeks to eliminate the current restriction on the amount of waste 
that can be stored inside Yucca Mountain. Right now, it is 77,000 tons. 
They want to double that. Lifting this cap would enable more nuclear 
waste to be dumped in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and would increase the 
number of waste shipments that would have to travel along America's 
roads and railways.
  I am also concerned that this bill is designed to try and pave the 
way for President Bush's plan to allow nuclear waste from other 
nations. It is bad enough they want to stick nuclear waste from across 
the country in Nevada; now they want to take other nations' nuclear 
waste, ship it to Nevada for burial at Yucca Mountain.
  Right now there is a limit on the nuclear waste that can be stored at 
Yucca Mountain. If the President has his way, Nevada will become the 
world's nuclear garbage dump.
  Another provision in the bill will make it easier for Congress to 
spend billions on dumping nuclear waste in Nevada, with little or no 
oversight to protect taxpayers. Billions of dollars have already been 
wasted on this hole in the middle of the Nevada desert, and the truth 
remains that Yucca Mountain is no closer to opening today than it was 
20 years ago when Nevada was unfairly singled out as the only State to 
be considered as a location to bury nuclear waste. That is known 
affectionately in the State of Nevada as the Screw Nevada Bill.
  Funding for this disaster waiting to happen does not deserve special 
treatment. Yucca Mountain should have to compete with our Nation's 
needs to fund homeland security, education, clean energy, health care, 
Social Security, and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. There should be 
no special budget treatment for Yucca Mountain, and Congress should 
exercise its full oversight authority, something we haven't seen for a 
while, on runaway spending on this failed project.
  This brings me to the fact that we have not seen an updated cost 
estimate for Yucca Mountain for years, despite the rising cost of fuel 
and construction projects and labor. I suspect that Yucca Mountain 
could ultimately cost hundreds of billions of dollars before we are 
through. Is this where you want to stick our taxpayers' dollars? I 
don't.
  The answer to this Nation's nuclear waste problem is not Yucca 
Mountain. The answer is to keep waste on-site where it is now produced 
in so-called ``dry cask storage.''
  I urge all of my colleagues to take a good look at this and make the 
right decision for our country and for our taxpayers.
  This system is already in use in nuclear power plants, has the 
blessing of nuclear regulators and will keep waste safe for the next 
100 years in hardened emplacements guarded by the same security 
precautions in place to keep nuclear power plants safe.
  I say to my colleagues: Do not fall for false claims that Yucca 
Mountain can be ``fixed'' by sweeping aside important health and safety 
protections or through a water grab that turns Nevada's water law on 
its head. Or by lifting the cap on the amount of waste that can be 
stored at Yucca Mountain so that Nevada can become a global nuclear 
garbage dump.
  Keep nuclear waste on-site, preserve the rules now in place to 
protect families and the environment, protect your right to scrutinize 
the billions being squandered on a hole in the Nevada desert and reject 
calls to support the reintroduction of the so-called ``Fix Yucca'' 
legislative package.

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