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   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 permanent problem, we will find a backdoor way for a stopgap interim solution. The stopgap interim solution

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   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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