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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, in 1983, President Reagan signed into law the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The new law began with a reasonable scientific approach. The country would search all over the Nation looking for geological formations which were capable of burying high-level nuclear waste. The new law would also consider three sites so as to provide some regional equity to the burden of storing the waste. One site would be in the northeastern part of the country, one site would be in the southeastern United States, and one site would be in the West. These three sites would be studied and then presented to the President of the United States for a decision.
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Since then, politics has had more to say to the siting of high-level nuclear waste than the science. After Members of Congress from the Northeast began to openly oppose placing the dump in the Northeast, the Department of Energy unilaterally decided to take them off the list. When placing the dump in the southeastern part of the country came up as a campaign issue in 1984, President Reagan unilaterally decided to take the southeastern part of the country off the list.
These decisions were not based on science, Mr. Speaker. They were based on politics. Then in 1987, the so-called ``screw Nevada'' bill was passed into law. This bill made the most political of decisions, to designate one site, Yucca Mountain, as the only site, excluding any other consideration from any other region in the country. So if I begin to question the claims of science from the supporters of dumping nuclear waste in Nevada, it is because I have learned to question from the history of this issue.
Fast forward to the mid 1990s. Nearly a decade has gone by since the ``screw Nevada'' bill and the scientific evidence against Yucca Mountain is growing. It has become scandalously obvious that Yucca Mountain was the wrong mountain to bet on. It is in an earthquake zone, it is in an underground flooding zone, it is in a volcanic eruption zone, for crying out loud.
On top of that we find out that the rocks at Yucca Mountain cannot contain radiation like the politicians had hoped. So back to the drawing boards to find another way to screw Nevada.
By 1995, illogical legislation took a new direction, something called a temporary storage site in Nevada. The nuclear industry figured they could build a temporary site because it would not have to meet the strict standards of a permanent dump, and once the waste was in Nevada, it would never leave.
But a funny thing happened on the way to a temporary dump. President Clinton promised to veto it and that threat, coupled with the hard work of some Members of the House and the Senate, has frozen the temporary concept for half of a decade.
But now, given that the temporary dump will not fly, we see S. 1287. This is nothing but a transparent effort to throw out radiation standards and sneak the date several years closer for shipping nuclear waste to Nevada. This is nothing but a temporary dump proposal in disguise. The President recognizes that and will veto S. 1287, and the Senate vote already proves the veto will be sustained.
Can we get off this act of futility and move on to worrying about the important issues that confront this Congress, that confront this country, education, health care, Social Security, and campaign finance reform? This is what our constituents want.
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That is what the people of Nevada want. We will not stand for 1287, and I ask my colleagues to join with me to stand up and oppose this onerous, ridiculous piece of legislation.
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