Copyright 1999 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
FEBRUARY 10, 1999, WEDNESDAY
SECTION: IN THE NEWS
LENGTH:
987 words
HEADLINE: PREPARED STATEMENT OF
SENATOR
RICHARD BRYAN
BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMERCE COMMITTEE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND POWER
SUBJECT - H.R. 45, THE NUCLEAR WASTE
POLICY ACT OF 1999
BODY:
Mr. Chairman, thank
you for permitting me to testify before the Subcommittee today.
As you know,
we in Nevada have a keen interest in the legislation before the Subcommittee
today --- for us, it is literally a life or death issue.
The legislation
before the Subcommittee today shows a callous disregard for the health and
safety of Nevadans, and millions of Americans across the nation.
Nevadans
have been the unwilling victims of a nearly twenty year political campaign
orchestrated by the nuclear power industry at the expense of our, and future
generations of Nevadans', health and safety. Today we are discussing yet another
potential chapter in this long and disgraceful story. The bill before the
Subcommittee today is a response to the industry's high level of frustration
with the federal high-level waste program -- but it is a poorly conceived,
self-serving, and irresponsible one.
Nevadans had no part in creating the
commercial nuclear power industry's waste problem, but are nevertheless expected
to bear the full burden of the industry's environmental legacy.
Now, as
scientific data begins to bear out our long held position that the site cannot
be found suitable, the industry has proposed yet another round of political
gerrymandering to again rewrite the rules, and attempt to overcome the
scientific and engineering obstacles to shipping its waste to Nevada.
The
industry knows, however, that to overcoming the scientific obstacles to shipping
its waste to Nevada is no small task --- and that is why this legislation is
such an environmental travesty.
In addition to siting an unnecessary and
unsafe "interim storage" facility in Nevada, the legislation makes a mockery of
decades of bipartisan environmental protection statutes. It establishes a
radiation release standard far less protective than any other federal, or
international, standard. The legislation proposes to subject Nevadans to
radiation releases 25 times that allowed under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and
more than 6 times that allowed for the WlPP facility in New Mexico.
It guts
NEPA, the primary federal statute designed to provide confidence to the public
in federal environmental activities.
It places 50 million citizens in 43
states along transportation routes for the waste shipments in harm's way. The
state of every member of this Committee is along these transportation routes.
It provides a multi-billion dollar windfall to nuclear utilities, who are
attempting to dodge their financial responsibility for the storage and disposal
of their waste.
Finally, the bill before the Subcommittee adds to the
already dangerous and misguided nuclear repository program a new, even more
irresponsible "interim" storage program.
Interim storage at the NTS is not
only unnecessary, it seriously compromises the characterization of the
Yucca Mountain site as a permanent repository. Siting
centralized interim storage at the NTS prior to an objective, science based
evaluation of Yucca Mountain prejudges the outcome of the
characterization process, and will eliminate any hope of public confidence in
the study the Yucca Mountain site.
The sole purpose of this
legislation is to shift the burden of the nuclear power industry's waste problem
to the people of Nevada and the American taxpayer. Under this legislation, the
utilities are the winners, and Nevadans, and every other citizen with even a
shred of respect for the environment, are the clear losers.
Despite the
"rosy scenario" of the Department of Energy's "viability assessment," it would
be difficult to find anyone today willing to wager that Yucca
Mountain will ever be licensed. Despite the Department of Energy's best
efforts to explain them all away, scientific data continue to build and cast
doubt on the ability of the Department to ever demonstrate that the site can
safely contain high level waste.
The geology underground has proven
difficult to model; recent data at the adjoining NTS have demonstrated far
faster migration of plutonium underground than DOE scientists have predicted.
The important question of water seepage through the site remains open;
higher than expected levels of Chlorine 36 at the repository level can only be
explained by water penetration from the surface in the last few decades.
Volcanic activity in the area appears to have been far more recent than
previously estimated.Seismic activity --- a particularly important issue in
relation to interim storage --- continues to be very active. Yucca
Mountain, and the NTS, lie within the second most active seismic area
in the continental United States. Well over 600 earthquakes registering over 3.0
on the Richter scale have been recorded in the area in the past twenty years ---
including six last month, two of which registered over 4.5.
The area around
Yucca Mountain and NTS is a constantly shifting, very active
geological formation --- hardly a suitable site for an underground repository,
and even less suitable for an above ground "interim storage" facility.
The
cost of the repository --- without even including any new interim storage ---
has gone through the roof, and will outstrip the current projected revenue of
the Nuclear Waste Fund by tens of billions of dollars. The DOE's current
estimate of the cost to complete the repository --- which does not include
interim storage --- is a staggering $36.6 billion.
The legislation before
the Subcommittee today faces little or no chance of enactment. It is opposed by
every major environmental group. Both the Department of Energy and the Nuclear
Waste Technical Review Board oppose centralized interim storage, as well as the
bill's necessary diversion of resources away from characterization of
Yucca Mountain. The President will veto the bill, and we will
have the votes in the Senate to sustain the President's Veto.
I urge the
Subcommittee to reject this misguided legislation.
END
LOAD-DATE: February 11, 1999
