Las Vegas – United States Senator Harry Reid released the following statement today during a news conference in Las Vegas to highlight the dangers of transporting high level nuclear waste. The event, organized by Public Citizen and Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS), featured a life size replica of a nuclear waste storage cask. The cask was driven across the nation to Nevada by Kevin Kamps of NIRS to raise awareness in communities which would be at risk from nuclear waste shipments headed to the Silver State.

"Last week Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico declared that under a Republican administration, America will have interim nuclear waste storage before the end of next year and there is no question that Nevada will be the site of that temporary dump. As Kevin Kamps of NIRS has so clearly demonstrated with his cross country awareness campaign, it is more than just the lives of Nevadans that are at risk. Communities across the nation would be in danger from an accident involving nuclear waste. Years of trains and trucks hauling canister after canister to the Nevada Test Site, each one a potential disaster waiting to happen. There is simply no reason to take that risk, and no reason this waste cannot be safely stored at the sites where it has been generated.

While interim waste storage remains our most immediate danger, work to turn Yucca Mountain into the nation's nuclear graveyard also continues. Earlier this year Congressional Republicans again attempted to place profits over people when they moved to set aside important health and safety standards for Yucca Mountain. President Clinton and Vice President Gore delivered on their pledge to veto that legislation which would have weakened radiation standards for the proposed nuke dump, and they have repeatedly vowed to block interim waste storage in Nevada. This coming election will determine whether or not we begin shipping thousands of tons of deadly radioactive poison across America's backyard. I predict that if George W. Bush is elected, that nuclear waste will begin its journey to Nevada in as little as six months."