Richard Bryan

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. We have heard considerable debate in the Chamber here about the horrendous liability that may exist out there because everyone concedes that the Department would not be able to physically accept possession of the waste in 1998. I thought I understood the Senator to indicate that there is at least some measure of damages provided. We have heard all kinds of billions and billions of dollars. I wasn't sure that I heard the Senator's comments.

Mr. BRYAN. And the measure of damages, as I recall, that is in that contract, it is additional cost that the utilities will incur, and that additional cost would be the provision of additional storage during that period of time, if I am correctly informed.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. And if the President of the United States makes a determination that Yucca Mountain is not suitable and submits to the Congress an alternative site other than the interim storage site at the Nevada test site, that if the Congress refuses to accept the President's recommendation then automatically the interim storage comes to the Nevada test site? I know the Senator was distracted, and I will repeat that. My question to my friend from Idaho is, does the Senator understand that if the President of the United States makes a finding that Yucca Mountain is not suitable and then under the bill is directed to make a choice of an interim storage site, that interim storage site must be approved by an act of Congress, and if the Congress does not approve that site then automatically the Nevada test site becomes the interim storage?

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question? I thought I heard the Senator say that if S. 104 is enacted we would have not 109 reactor sites but 110 reactor sites. I invite the Senator's attention looking at this chart. If I understand the point he is trying to make, before S. 104 would be enacted--these would be the various reactor sites--every site prior to its enactment is still there and we add one more at Yucca Mountain, or at the Nevada test site. So we have 110.

Mr. BRYAN. May I inquire of my friend, it is my understanding, not at the request of the Senators from Nevada, but my understanding that there was at least a tentative understanding that we would not be having rollcall votes on these pending amendments until next week. Maybe there is some change. I emphasize for the benefit of all Senators and my colleagues, that is certainly not at the request of the Senators from Nevada, certainly not at the request of the Senator from Alaska, either. But if there has been a change, I think we need to make others aware of that.

Mr. BRYAN. Will the Senator agree that S. 104 holds out a false promise, that somehow, if it were enacted, everything would disappear and wind up near Las Vegas?

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I yield myself such time as I may need. Mr. President, I want to continue this discussion of my colleague. Each of us was thinking in the same frame of reference. He said no matter how much you dress up a pig it's still a pig. I learned as a youngster the old adage, you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. And that is exactly what we have here. We have not had a chance to review in detail all the asserted changes that the chairman of the committee intends, and we will have a chance to comment on that tomorrow. But central to this debate, the basic issue, the point at which all discussion begins, every thoughtful and analytical and policy frame of reference, is the question of whether or not we should place interim storage anywhere before a determination is made with respect to a permanent repository or dump. That is why the administration continues to oppose this legislation, Senator Bingaman opposes this legislation, why every environmental organization in America opposes this legislation. Because the basic flaw is this is unnecessary and unwise. We will have a chance to expand upon this tomorrow. But you go back to the origin of this debate, 17 years ago, you scratch the surface and always the nuclear utility industry and its highly paid advocates have one mission and one mission only--remove the waste from the reactor site. That was the essence of the debate, as we have pointed out time and time again on the floor dating back to 1980 when then the Holy Grail of the industry was an ``away- from-reactor'' storage program; the same basic concept, anywhere away from here, get it out, away from reactor storage. The Congress wisely rejected in 1980 that approach, just as they have rejected that approach consistently, year after year. I want to refer to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. We have talked about that a great deal. Much has been made of its contents. But the point that needs to be made is there is no urgent technical need for interim storage of spent fuel--none. Our colleague, the ranking member of the committee, last night, the senior Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers], went on at great length about: There is no necessity, no need to do so. Indeed, any thoughtful policy approach rejects that premise. Again, in 1997, a reconstituted Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board reaches the same conclusion, namely that there is no necessity and no reason to move at this time. They make a second point here that I think is important to emphasize, and that is, if the site selection process is to retain any integrity at all, here is what Dr. Cohon said in his testimony of February 5: However, to maintain the credibility of the site- suitability decision, siting a centralized storage near Yucca Mountain-- That is interim storage he has reference to-- should be deferred until a technically defensible site- suitability determination can be made at Yucca Mountain. That is the essence of the argument, that no decision should be made until a defensible site-suitability determination can be made at Yucca Mountain. He goes on to say: We have estimated that such a determination could be made within about 4 years. Those are Dr. Jared Cohon's comments. So, Mr. President, it is clear that the nuclear utility industry is scrambling at the last moment to put together a few flourishes on the legislation that is before us, but they will not and cannot change the basic flaw in that they would propose to site interim storage at the Nevada test site before a determination is made with respect to the permanent repository. Let me say, for those who have followed this issue over the years, the only justification for siting it at the Nevada test site--and this was debated last year on the floor, to some extent--was the assumption, the predicate that Yucca Mountain would be the permanent repository. That was the only basis. How in the world can you place interim storage until you have a determination made as to whether the permanent facility, which is the whole predicate of the interim storage licensing decision, has been determined, and that has not occurred. So this has nothing to do with science. Frequently, science is invoked to defend the course of action that our colleagues on the other side of this issue would urge upon the body. This has absolutely nothing to do with science; it has everything to do with nuclear politics as advocated by the nuclear power industry and their legions of lobbyists who line the hallways and the corridors of this Chamber, as well as the other body. A second point I think needs to be made here and was addressed, in part, by my senior colleague, and that is the transportation issue. If we should not be moving it at all until a decision is made, why place at risk the citizens of 43 States, 51 million people, along highway and rail corridors in America? Senator Reid is quite correct that Europe is often cited: ``My gosh, they have their situation handled; why can't we do it here?'' Believe me, once you start moving 85,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste, you are going to have communities, and rightly so, exercised about the transport of those kinds of volumes. The chairman of the committee says, ``Well, we're shipping nuclear waste around now.'' That is true to some extent, but the difference between 2,500 shipments and 17,000 shipments in which the 2,500 shipments have traveled 900 miles or less is a vastly different proposition in terms of magnitude of risk of shipping waste over thousands of miles. Remember, most of these reactors are in the East and would be transported virtually from coast to coast, a very different proposition again. Something else that we have tried to make understandable in this debate to our opponents is the fact that the casks that would be used have not yet been designed, nor have they been manufactured. So we are talking about a totally different reconfigured cask that will take some time. I invite my colleagues' attention to the testimony of Dr. Jared Cohon, again, earlier this year when he indicated that it is not just a siting decision. He says: But developing a storage facility-- And he is referring there, again, to interim storage-- requires more than a siting decision. It also requires the development of a transportation system, and it is likely that such transportation system will take several years to develop. So the notion that somehow instantaneously this problem is taken care of, just pass S. 104 and all of our problems go away. I want to respond to one other issue briefly before concluding. The notion is somehow fostered here that if an interim storage facility is located at the Nevada test site, that rather than having 109 different reactor sites around the country where nuclear waste is stored, we will have only one. Mr. President, that is not correct. We will have 110, not 109. Many people may not be familiar with the fact that immediately after a spent fuel cell assembly is removed from the reactor because it no longer has the efficiency necessary to generate electrical power, it is stored for many, many years in a spent-fuel pond or pool for it to cool off for a period of time. We are talking about reactors that are licensed up to the period of 2033. So we are going to have nuclear waste stored at many sites around the country for many, many years, irrespective of S. 104. So the notion that is held out of ``pass this bill and we will have no nuclear waste other than at the site designated in this bill, the Nevada test site,'' is certainly a false premise and, indeed, once the waste is removed, the reactor itself remains and is hazardous for an extended period of time. There are many things we will be talking about in more detail during the course of the debate over the next few days. But no matter how they try to recast this as a different piece of legislation, some chameleon- hued piece of nuclear legislation, when you get to the very essence, the core of the legislation, its fatal and unperfectable flaw is that it calls for siting interim storage before the decision is made on the permanent facility, and no one in the scientific community is arguing for that proposition. So this is nuclear politics, and we are simply responding to the bidding of the nuclear utility industry, which, for more than a decade now, has urged the Congress, in one form or another, to remove the reactor waste, send it somewhere else, send it anywhere, but get it out from under us, and that is the objection that the policymakers, who have given this their thoughtful attention--the President of the United States and others--have said that is what is wrong with this legislation. It is what was wrong with the legislation in 1996, and that has not changed in the original form in which this bill was introduced, and based upon the discussion of the chairman of the committee, it has not changed in the substitute that is being proposed. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. I think the essence of what the chairman has proposed is agreeable to the Senators from Nevada, and I think implicit in what the chairman said is we will actually go on the bill at 1 o'clock tomorrow.

Mr. BRYAN. I just wanted to clarify. I thank the chairman.

Mr. BRYAN. If the distinguished Senator would yield for a question, I do not intend to offer any more comments today. I don't know of anybody on our side of the aisle who will. I withhold the comment. I am informed that Senator Bumpers may take the floor at 5 o'clock. I am not sure whether he will be speaking on this issue, or not. He may very well be. But as long as we can accommodate him, I say to the distinguished chairman that it is not my purpose to hold either the chairman or any other person to a time limit this evening.

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, debate is winding down today. I know we will have an opportunity to debate this issue throughout the next few days. I thought it might be helpful to clarify a statement made by the Senator from Idaho with respect to the canister issue. The Senator from Nevada has not said that there are not canisters that have been approved, licensed, and used. There are indeed such canisters. The difference is the kind of canisters that are contemplated in the shipments that will be involved in sending some 75,000 metric tons of nuclear waste to a site in Nevada that have not yet been designed and have not yet been produced. So all of the film footage that the Nuclear Energy Institute and its supporters have used is footage with respect to canisters that would not be used in the kind of massive shipments that are contemplated here. What is contemplated here is a canister by rail that would accommodate 20 to 24 fuel assemblies. That would be the equivalent weight of about 125 tons; it is a rail cask. And each truck cask would weigh at least 25 tons. So the standards are out there, but they have not yet been designed and built. There was a reference, at least lately, that the concerns expressed by the Senators from Nevada with respect to the standards that have been proposed for the new enlarged canister are standards that are more than adequate to meet the task, and, indeed, that there may be some scare tactics on our part in referencing those. Let me just simply indicate that the Livingston, LA, fire--I want to be very clear on this--involved a 1982 train derailment. That is a fact. The circumstances of that accident are not theoretical or hypothetical. They are real. The Nuclear Regulation Commission itself-- not a group of Nevada legislators or the scientists that have been engaged by Nevada to argue the case here but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission itself--applied the conditions in the aftermath of the Livingston, LA, fire to the standards that are to be used in this new enlarged cask configuration and acknowledged that the high temperatures in that fire--not a theoretical fire--would cause an NRC-approved cask to fail. In their words, ``The radiological hazard would exceed compliance values by up to a factor of four.'' But the thing that needs to be emphasized--this is not some theoretical, unrealistic, utterly fantastic, farfetched, bizarre set of circumstances that have been conjured up. This relates to a real-life accident in 1982. In that accident, with the fire temperatures that were engendered as a consequence of that derailment applied to the standards which the NRC is proposing for this new canister configuration that would accommodate 20 to 24 fuel assemblies, it would fail. A radiological hazard would be created. That is a statement not by the Senator from Nevada but a statement by the NRC. Let me make one additional point, if I may, with respect to the transportation issue. As an indication that we are not yet even ready to transport this volume of waste, I think the proponents of S. 104 would have us believe that if through some, in my judgment, irresponsible, reckless act on the part of the Congress to enact this legislation, if this were enacted today, indeed, if the storage facility were opened today, then immediately a mass migration of nuclear waste would occur from the repository sites currently; namely, at the nuclear reactors where they are located and where this flow of shipments began. I think it is important to try to give some balance because this is not a panacea even if you buy into this corporate welfare program that the nuclear power utilities would have us embrace. I think the words of Dr. Jared Cohon, who is the chairman of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board--again, a body created by this Congress, not by some Nevada oversight group--points out: Developing a storage facility requires more than a siting decision. It also requires the development of a transportation system and developing a transportation infrastructure, including the transportation cap, and enhanced safety capabilities along the routes necessary to move significant amounts of waste will likely take years longer than would be needed to develop a centralized storage facility. I need to make that point again. I mean, the thrust of this debate-- and you will hear much more from our colleagues who are saying that somehow it is a panacea of S. 104, if enacted and signed into law, that immediately the waste will be removed from the reactor sites. That is simply not true. Even if theoretically a site could be opened in the next year or 18 months--and absolutely no one believes that--siting interim storage would require at least 3 or 4 years. But assume for the sake of argument that the site was available, what Dr. Cohon is telling us is that because we do not have the casks currently in existence--the standards, yes, but not the casks--that it would take us a while to develop the transportation system that would be required; that it will require a few years to get that done. So all of this talk about the casks that have been depicted on film and all of the discussion about the casks being dropped from 30 feet, 50 feet, 60 feet, or 100 feet, are totally irrelevant. We are talking about casks that will not be used for this purpose. We are talking about a new configuration cask that has not yet been developed, and I think that point needs to be emphasized. Let me make one other point, if I may, with respect to the notion that somehow because Nevada, responding to a patriotic call during the height of the cold war in 1951, agreed to allow nuclear testing at the Nevada test site--I was in the eighth grade the year the nuclear testing began in Nevada. I have to tell you that it was a different age and a different time than it is today. We were all pretty naive about what that was about. Were we excited? Yes. We all thought it was a great thing. We were on the cutting edge in technology. In those days the nuclear power lobby convinced America that everything would be nuclear, that we would have little reactors in our back yards and planes would be powered by nuclear fuel; locomotives; and, indeed, as was often said, the nuclear power will be so cheap that it can't be measured. That goes back 46 years ago. In my hometown of Las Vegas, businesses changed their names to atomic groceries, atomic this and that. There was an atomic hairdoo. Yes. Nevadans sensed that they were being asked to respond to a patriotic call of the Federal Government to respond to a confrontation that we had with a superpower, the Soviet Union. That frightened all of us. I hope that my friends would not suggest that because we responded to that, that there is somehow implicit a duty to accept civilian reactor wastes generated on site, a decision made by local utilities and local customers, and that that somehow be sent to us in Nevada. I might just say parenthetically with respect to that rather naive world in which we lived in 1951, today every American pays as part of his or her tax dollars to the people who are downwind from those nuclear detonations that we were assured at the time that they were absolutely safe--``Don't worry about it. It is the most exciting thing in the world.'' We invited members of the fourth estate, the Department of Energy. Then it was called the Atomic Energy Commission. There was a little place. They built bleachers for them called News Nob. Come on up and see for yourselves. This is science. This is exciting stuff, folks. We sent thousands of our military personnel to a place called Camp Desert Rock, and we dug trenches out there and showed them what the exposure would be like to atmospheric radiation. Mr. President, if any responsible scientist suggested that that was absolutely safe today, I mean he or she would be hounded out of any kind of scientific academy that exists. We all know now that is dangerous stuff. It is very hazardous, and a lot of people downwind paid with their lives, and paid through genetic damage which they have experienced and suffered from cancers. As a consequence, each of us as taxpayers in America today compensate those victims. Let me make a distinction, if I may. It has been suggested that somehow because the test sites were used for this purpose, it is an absolutely logical, inescapable conclusion that it should be the repository for this interim site. That is fallacious reasoning. First of all, we are talking about two entirely different kinds of radioactivity. Remember what we are talking about here with high-level nuclear waste--stuff that by its very definition is deadly for thousands and thousands of years. Nobody quarrels with that in the debate--thousands and thousands of years. We all recall that in the aftermath of dropping two atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II--one at Hiroshima and one at Nagasaki--that those two cities did not remain isolated for decades or even a score of years. They were rebuilt immediately. The reason is that it is a different type of radiation. There is no question that there is a radiation hazard in the blinding seconds of the detonation. We have all seen that. But it is not the kind of residual radiation that requires isolation and protection for thousands of years. Let me make a couple of points. I know the distinguished chairman of the Energy Committee has taken the floor. I can assure him I will be just a couple of minutes. Here is the difference. Trinity was the first successful atomic detonation in the history of the world at Alamogordo in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945. That is the first one. That is when we knew we had a bomb that would work. In order to equate the radioactive equivalent of what is referred to as the fission product inventory that would be stored in Nevada as a result of all of these 75,000 to 85,000 metric tons, it would require the equivalent of 2.3 million nuclear detonations--let me repeat that again: 2.3 million detonations--of the Trinity-sized atomic bomb to create the equivalent of what is proposed to be stored at the Nevada test site. Placed in another context, because Nevada did agree to host the testing programs, based upon the average yearly testing rate during the period that the Nuclear Weapons Program was operational at the Nevada test site that was approximately 20 nuclear weapons detonations per year, in order to equate to the fission product equivalent of what is being proposed to be shipped here, it required that rate of testing, namely 20 nuclear weapons tests a year, for a period of from 10,000 to 100,000 years. So we are not talking about some finite distinction. We are talking about something that is of a totally different magnitude, a totally different character. I say to my friends who tried to equate the nuclear testing program during the days of the cold war with storage of high-level nuclear waste from civilian reactors, you are talking about apples and oranges in a literal sense. So we are not talking about the same thing. We are talking about waste that by its very nature is deadly for thousands and thousands of years. No one disagrees with that. We are talking about nuclear detonations which have a totally different type of radioactive footprint and which would require the equivalent of 2.3 million Trinity detonations to get the same equivalency being discussed, or a testing protocol that would call for 20 nuclear detonations a year that would have to last from between 10,000 and 100,000 years to equal what is being proposed to be sent to Nevada. I just think those two points need to be made. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. MURKOWSKI addressed the Chair.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I want to return to what I think is the fundamental flaw in this legislation, and that is that it is unneeded, unwise, and unsafe. When you ask who wants this legislation, the only one that is really pushing it, the driving force, is the nuclear utilities. That is where this all comes from. Every environmental organization in the country has expressed its opposition. The scientific community--the Congress established the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. I will repeat for the benefit of my colleagues, in 1989 a commission was part of the review process. They said there was no safety advantage to interim storage. In 1996, we have a report from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board that said there is no urgent technical need for centralized storage of commercial spent fuel. There is no safety factor to consider. And the same technical review board, constituted with new members in 1997, has offered testimony to the effect that it would be a very unwise decision because it would interfere with the permanent siting process. That was testimony that was given on February 5. So, if we are asking about science and the scientific community, they have expressed themselves. They said this is not a good idea. If you are asking about the environmental community, where they are coming from, they are saying it is not a good idea. Yesterday, I spent a few moments talking about the specifics of the bill. Let me just very briefly retrace some of those issues for us. In effect, what this legislation does is to gut a process that was a bipartisan piece of legislation, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. If you look at page 47, and you go through a number of the specific provisions there--and we will debate this, I suspect, at greater length during the course of the week--but the act virtually emasculates the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act. It says, yes, there will be an environmental impact statement, but the statement may not consider the need for interim storage, the time of initial availability, any alternatives to spent fuel storage, any alternatives to the site of the facility, any alternatives to the design, the environmental impact of the storage beyond the initial term of the license, which is 20 years. This makes an absolute mockery of any kind of profession that this follows NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, of 1969. There are other provisions as well that refer to the preemption of all Federal environmental laws. That is section 501. We have talked about that extensively during the course of the debate. There are standards which are compromised in this provision. For example, there is a statutory provision that occurs on page 56 that indicates, rather than the Environmental Protection Agency having the ability, independent and unfettered, to make a judgment as to what the correct standard would be in terms of radioactive emission exposure, it sets a 100 millirem standard by statute and requires the EPA to affirmatively prove that the overall system performance standard would constitute an unreasonable risk to health and safety. We did not do that anyplace else in terms of the WIPP facility which was debated last year. The two able Senators from New Mexico made forceful statements that they believed, because the WIPP facility was going to be operational in their State, they had the expectation that EPA would establish the highest possible standards to protect the health and safety of New Mexicans. Who among us could disagree with that? But that is not the standard for us here in Nevada. The EPA is constrained and limited, in terms of what it can do, and here is an example of 100 millirems of radiation, S. 104. There is safe drinking water, other low-level-waste facilities--the WIPP facility, which I just mentioned, has a standard of 15 millirems during the course of a year. So this thing is absolutely so phony in terms of any kind of protection for health and safety, it ought to be something of concern to any legislator, irrespective of where the final destination may be. Let me say, the National Academy of Sciences--these are scientists, not people selected by the Governor of Nevada or the Nevada congressional delegation--go through a whole list of things they recommend. They recommend a risk-based standard rather than a 100 millirem standard. They have recommended the protective standard be defined by a critical group: a small, relatively homogeneous group be representative of those expected to receive the highest doses. That is not included. They maintain that, in terms of the length of time, because nuclear waste is lethal for thousands and thousands of years, there should be no cutoff period of time, that there must be an ability to protect for thousands of years. What does S. 104 provide? That you can only consider the first 1,000 years. I suppose, whether you are an advocate for term limits or not, we would all agree that 1,000 years is not going to affect anybody in this Chamber. But, I mean for something that is deadly for 10,000 years and beyond, that is simply irresponsible to put those kinds of handcuffs on. Human intrusion--all of the scientific community acknowledges there is no scientific basis for assuming there would be no human intrusion during these thousands and thousands of years. The statute we are dealing with, S. 104, directs just the contrary, to make an assumption that there is to be no human intrusion. The National Academy of Sciences said that these raise complicated policy issues. There ought to be opportunity for wide-ranging input from all interested parties. These are set by statute, under S. 104--no public comment. So, I must say that in terms of science, in terms of fairness, in terms of health and public safety, this piece of legislation is a disaster not only for my State but for America. I want to speak for just a moment about the transportation issue and some of the film footage that has appeared. First, I think it is important for us to understand that, although Nevada, under this legislation, is the ultimate repository on an interim basis, there are some 43 States, 51 million Americans who live within a mile of each of these major corridors. The red depicts the highways, the blue depicts the rail. You are going to have, wherever you may be looking on this map here, you are going to have roughly 16,000 shipments that would pass along these corridors--16,000. It has been suggested that the Department of Energy is experienced, but I think to put this in some context, Mr. Dreyfus, who was the head of the Radioactive Waste Management Office, an individual well known to my colleagues, having testified before the Energy Committee on a number of times, says this: ``Material like this,'' referring to nuclear waste, ``has been moving around for a long time. So that is not a technical challenge,'' he says. ``But compared to the kind of campaign what we are talking about, what the industry has been doing up to now is trivial. We are talking about a magnitude of many times greater. We are talking about 16,000 shipments.'' Since 1975, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported shipments that are sent by rail or by truck averaged approximately 900 miles or less. We are talking about thousands of miles. As the occupant of the Chair knows, our States are in the West and far removed from most of these reactor sites. So, I think it is important to make that point. Let me add a couple of other things, if I may here. First of all, the casks that have been shown have no relevance to this debate--none. The casks that would be used for shipping have not been designed. They are not in existence. The casks that are used in the film prepared by the Nuclear Energy Institute refer to a previous generation of smaller casks. Those are not what is contemplated. Those are not what is contemplated. We are talking about a new generation of casks, casks that do not meet standards which we believe every such cask should meet. For example, it requires a 30-minute exposure to a fire at 1,475 degrees. However, diesel fuel burns at an average of 1,800 degrees and can reach 3,200 degrees. So the 30-minute proposed standard for these yet-to-be-designed and produced casks does not address real world accidents, where train wrecks can burn for hours, if not for days. None of the tests would require that kind of protection. The NRC has estimated that 6 out of every 1,000 rail accidents could cause fundamental damage that will cause the cask to fail. Given the 16,000 shipments that are contemplated, that comes to 96 accidents where the NRC-approved standard would fail. I submit that is not great comfort to those millions of Americans who are going to be along the route. The NRC claims the cask design will prevent radioactive leakage in severe accidents. But the cask design has never--repeat, never--been tested in lifelike situations. In one computer simulation, the NRC chose four real-life severe transportation accidents and applied these conditions to a cask meeting NRC specs. In one of those real-life accidents, which involved a 1982 train derailment and fire in Livingston, LA--this was an accident that occurred and a fire that resulted--the NRC publicly acknowledged that the high temperatures would cause an NRC-approved cask to fail. In their words, ``the radiological hazard would exceed compliance values by up to a factor of four.'' This is not some theoretical accident, a hypothetical. This is an accident that occurred in Livingston, LA, in 1982, and the NRC said the standards they propose would not have protected a cask under their proposed design from releasing radioactivity. That is not much comfort, that is not much assurance for those who are going to be along the highways and railways. Let me address an issue that I think has not received the kind of attention that it should, and that is, this bill is a bailout for the nuclear power industry. Dating back to the time of the inception of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, it was always agreed that the utilities themselves should pay for the storage and ultimate disposition of high- level nuclear waste, and the mechanism established was to establish a nuclear waste trust fund in which ratepayers would pay at the rate of 1 mill for each kilowatt hour generated into this trust fund. That is the current way. Here is what this bill does. Rather than have the ratepayers pay for the ultimate cost, this bill very cleverly transfers the liability and responsibility to the American taxpayer. The year 2033 is the last year, under currently licensed nuclear reactors, that there will be reactors in operation. Currently, under General Accounting Office actuarial projections, the fund is from $4 billion to $8 billion underfunded in terms of what will be required, because as each reactor goes off line, it no longer contributes to the fund. The last reactor goes off line in the year 2033, and it is required that the expenditures, in terms of dealing with that waste, continue until the year 2071. So years after the last mill is deposited into the nuclear waste trust fund, expenses will continue. As I have indicated, right now the General Accounting Office says this fund is $4 billion to $8 billion underfunded. It is contended that the ratepayers have not gotten what they bargained for. That is certainly not true now, and the surplus that is in the account is designed to take care of those years from 2033 to 2071, where nothing will come into the fund by way of a mill-tax levy because there will be no power generated from those reactors. Here is a very, very clever way of shifting the liability to the American taxpayer. This bill, in its present form, caps the amount of contribution, even though the current fund is underfunded by $4 billion to $8 billion at 1 mill per kilowatt hour, and after the year 2003, it says that the only mill tax that can be collected would be the amount necessary to pay for the appropriation from the fund that year, providing no revenue for the outyears. So this is corporate welfare, this is corporate pork, this is a new entitlement program which will cost the American taxpayers literally billions and billions of dollars in the outyears. Everybody acknowledges that the 1998 deadline that was put into the act in 1982 cannot be met. I would say parenthetically, that was not a scientific date that was put in. Indeed, there was resistance in 1982 because it was felt that that time line was too short. This was a deadline that was pushed by our friends, once again, from the nuclear utilities. So it is unfair to blame the Department of Energy and the scientific community for 1998. This was a deadline pushed by the utilities. I believe that there is equity and fairness to be provided to the ratepayers, because after 1998, they will not have permanent storage available. In each of the Congresses in which I have served, we have offered legislation that would entitle the utilities to an offset; that is, to the extent that the storage would not be available in 1998 and they would incur additional expense, as they will, that should be an offset or a reduction in the contribution that they pay into the nuclear waste fund so that the utility ratepayers do not pay twice. I think that is fair. I think there is a reasonable argument to be made there, and the administration believes that. As recently as this past month, there were discussions to provide compensation to the utilities because permanent storage will not be available after 1998, and it was rejected by the utilities. They do not care a wit about that. That is not what they are interested in. They are interested in getting the taxpayer to bail them out for the money that will take beyond the year 2033, to the year 2071, to, in effect, take care of the expenses of the nuclear waste that they generated-- that they generated--that they have made profits on over all these many years. So there is not an argument of equity we are addressing here, because not a single provision in S. 104 addresses the question of equity. We have a piece of legislation which we have introduced, again, this Congress which we have previously introduced, which says, ``Look, after 1998, yes, you don't get the permanent storage that was contemplated, we understand that.'' There is no conceivable way that could occur. If this bill was passed tomorrow and signed into law, the 1998 deadline could not be met for at least probably to the year 2001. The administration has offered to provide compensation to reimburse utilities for the additional costs incurred, and our legislation would specifically do so. So this has not one thing to do with ratepayers being charged twice. They are given an opportunity for relief, if they want it, in the legislation that my senior colleague from Nevada and I have introduced. So let's put that to rest. The lawsuit. The lawsuit changes nothing. The lawsuit was finalized last year before we concluded our date on 1936, the predecessor to S. 104, and the lawsuit simply provides that there is a legal obligation on the part of the Department to take the waste at some point down the line. There is a legal obligation. It in no way suggests that the waste would be physically removed by 1998, and it could not. So when you look at the contract, each of the utilities under the 1982 act entered into a contract with the Department of Energy, and that contract simply says that in case there is an avoidable delay, the utility is entitled to an offset in terms of what is being paid into the nuclear waste fund by the amount of additional expense they incur. That is the remedy, that is fair, that is the law. The distinguished Presiding Officer is suggesting that my time has about run out. I reserve the remainder of the time and yield the floor.

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I yield myself 20 minutes.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Absolutely.

Mr. BRYAN. Madam President, the junior Senator from Nevada has been criticized and taken to task somewhat because he has referred to this legislation as a ``mobile Chernobyl.'' In that criticism, it has been said, ``Look, what happened at Chernobyl is a different situation entirely. There you had a reactor explode. This is not going to explode.'' I concede that there are differences in terms of causation, but the results are equally devastating. We are talking about the shipment of 85,000 metric tons of nuclear waste. That would involve, as has been estimated, about 15,638 shipments--6,217 by truck, roughly 9,421 by rail. So we are looking at about 15,638 to roughly 17,000 shipments. Each of those truck casks would weigh 25 tons. Each rail cask would weigh 125 tons. One rail cask--one rail cask--carries the long-lived radiological equivalent of 200 Hiroshima bombs--200. So when I use the ``mobile Chernobyl'' analogy, the risk to Nevadans, the risk to Americans, if indeed a rail cask ruptured as a result of an accident and radiation was released, it would be a mobile Chernobyl because the spread of radioactivity and the resultant contamination that results as a consequence could be widespread. I would simply point out to those who are so sanguine about transportation that we are daily reminded that human error--the chairman of the Energy Committee pointed out that Chernobyl was a product of human error. Indeed, Madam President, I suspect that a great many of our accidents, maybe even a majority of them, are a product of human error. We see that every time there is a major rail collision or a train that is derailed as a consequence of some neglect in trackage. We have certainly seen it in the context of terrorist activities of late. But the National Environmental Law Center provides that EPA data analysis shows that 7,959 accidents occurred during the transportation of toxic chemicals from 1988 to 1992. The American Petroleum Institute tells us that heavy truck accidents occur approximately six times for each million miles traveled with thousands of truck shipments. This means that at least 15 such accidents could be expected each year. So the risks are considerable in terms of this transportation, all of which are unnecessary. It is not necessary or advisable or prudent or sound policy to do so. This is frequently characterized as a Nevada battle. But let me just say, fairly recently there has been a proposal to move the nuclear waste from a port in Oakland through Nevada and into Idaho. It has generated a considerable amount of controversy, not only in my own State, but in California. I believe that those who are watching across the Nation should be aware of the fact that Nevadans are not the only ones who are placed at risk by this ill-conceived proposal. The shipment routes involve 43 different States, and 51 million Americans live within 1 mile of either the rail or highway corridor routes. On this chart that we are exhibiting, the highway corridors are depicted in red, the rail routes are depicted in blue. With the kinds of massive shipments we are talking about--125 tons by rail, 25 tons by each truck cask--you could only use the major corridor routes. You would not use some back road or unimproved surface. You would need a full-scale transportation route. With all the potential for accident, with all the potential for some serious, unintended, unavoidable consequence, we risk the lives of 51 million Americans to satisfy the request of a single industry in America--the nuclear utility industry. They are the only ones that bring us to the floor to debate this issue today. As my senior colleague pointed out, they were the ones in 1980 that brought it to the floor. They were the ones that brought it to the floor in 1996. And if we are successful, as I believe that we will be in 1997 in preventing this legislation from being enacted into law, based upon a carefully considered Presidential position that he will veto such legislation, I would predict that they will be back here in 1998, 1999, and the year 2000 because this is something that they covet and that is a priority for them. So the transportation issue, of which we will comment more during the course of the debate tomorrow, is a consideration that affects 51 million Americans in 43 different States. As they say, you cannot get there from here. You have to take that lethal waste across the heart of America. Most of this waste--most of this waste--being east of the Mississippi River will involve transportation over literally thousands of rail or highway miles. Let me briefly comment on a couple of other points. The chairman of the Energy Committee pointed out that there is a lawsuit that was filed. He said, as others have said, that it requires that the Department of Energy must take possession of nuclear waste that is stored throughout the reactor sites by 1998 and, if we do not do so, that all kinds of horrendous consequences will occur. First, let me point out that the lawsuit was decided last year prior to the vote that we took on S. 1936, which is the predecessor to S. 104 and essentially in the significant aspects is virtually identical. So this is not a new development. But I think it is important to comment because the utilities have sought to obfuscate the issue and have given the impression that, indeed, in 1998 there will be a series of Department of Energy trucks or vans or rail cars that must back up to every reactor site in America and begin to load those on board and that, lo and behold, if they do not have an interim storage facility, these vehicles will be traveling endlessly for all time and in perpetuity. Nonsense. The lawsuit did conclude that the Department of Energy has an obligation, a legal responsibility. And you look to what the remedy is in the contracts. In 1982, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was enacted by the Congress, signed into law by President Reagan. In that act it required utilities to enter into contracts with the Department of Energy. And all the utilities that are part of this debate have done so. When you look at the contract, there are two provisions, two provisions that specifically deal with this issue. I again remind my friends that 1998 was not a date sanctified by the scientific community. That was a date the utilities insisted upon. The Department of Energy and others argued that that date was unrealistic. ``We're not going to be able to reach that date,'' they said. But the utilities said, ``No. 1998, we want that.'' That is what the law reflected. But in the contract that was required to be entered into with each of the utilities with the Department of Energy, there were two provisions. Both of these provisions are contained in article 9. What it said is this: In anticipation that the 1998 date may not be fulfilled, it indicated that if the delays were unavoidable by the Department of Energy, that is, if the delays were beyond their control, that there was no culpability. Then the remedy that was provided was simply to reschedule the delivery dates. It makes some sense. The other provision that is applicable--and I am sure the utilities will urge this point of view--is, indeed, there is culpability on the part of the Department of Energy. As a result of their culpability, it would be classified under the provisions of the contract as an ``avoidable'' delay. That, too, is part of article 9, section B. The contract remedy is, in the event of any delay in the delivery, acceptance or transport caused by circumstances within the reasonable control of the Department of Energy or their respective contractors or suppliers, the charges and schedules specified by this contract will be equitably adjusted to reflect any estimated additional cost. That strikes me as being reasonable. I had occasion in many years past to practice law, not nuclear utility law or environmental law, but what this says is that, look, if the Department of Energy is found to have been negligent in moving the process forward, the utility is entitled to an adjustment of what they are paying into the nuclear waste trust fund based upon additional costs that are being incurred. Indeed, that is not a novel concept. When this Senator first came to the Senate in 1989, and in each session thereafter, joined by my senior colleague from Nevada, we have offered legislation that does indeed provide that the utilities would be entitled to an offset or compensation for the additional expense that they may incur as a result of this 1998 deadline being unattainable. So there is no great mystery about the lawsuit. It changes nothing in the debate that we have, nothing whatsoever, and should not be used as a basis for supporting the legislation that is currently before us. Finally, let me make just one additional comment that the senior Senator from Nevada addressed. That is that this legislation is not going to become law. The President of the United States, as he did in 1996, indicated that this is bad policy, and following the advice and counsel of the scientific community--the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board concluded that it was unnecessary, unwise, and indeed there is no necessity for this, no safety is to be gained by this massive shipment of 85,000 metric tons of waste. This is a scientific body that concluded that in 1996, and although the board is newly constituted with a new chairman and many new members, it reached the same conclusion in 1997, this very year, in testimony that verified that interim storage is not necessary. So the President, following the wise counsel of those who have examined this from a scientific and objective point of view, has indicated, as shown in testimony before the Senate Energy Committee, that this legislation will be vetoed if indeed it should reach his desk. We will have much more to say about this issue as we debate it during the course of the next week or so. We will point out with greater particularity a number of the issues that we have touched upon lightly today. I just hope, for my colleagues who are watching and their staffs, that we not be misled. This is legislation that is a carbon copy of the legislation that was debated in S. 1936 in the last session of the Congress. I yield the floor. Madam President, I see no one else is on the floor seeking recognition. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BRYAN. That is my understanding, that we are obligated to do so, but we have not yet done so.

Mr. BRYAN. I do, indeed. It was made in 1980. Neither the senior Senator from Nevada nor the junior Senator from Nevada were Members of this body or of the other one at that time. But then, as now, the nuclear utilities were urging the Congress to adopt interim storage, they then were called away from reactor storage. The statements were made during the floor debate that if this were, in fact, not done, that within the next 3 years, by 1983, nuclear utilities would have to close down and there would be brownouts. As the senior Senator from Nevada knows, that was 1980. In a sense, if you took the date off that legislation and inserted the words ``interim storage'' for ``AFR,'' it would be identical to the context of the debate. If the senior Senator from Nevada will indulge me for a moment, this is what was said by the then chairman of the Energy Committee, Mr. Johnston, the distinguished Senator from Louisiana: Mr. President, this bill-- Referring to the AFR legislation-- deals comprehensively with the problem of civilian nuclear waste. It is an urgent problem-- Sounds somewhat familiar, does it not? Mr. President, for this Nation. It is urgent, first, because we are running out of reactor space at reactors for the storage of the fuel, and if we do not build what we call away-from-reactor storage and begin that soon, we could begin shutting down civilian nuclear reactors in this country as soon as 1983. . . . I say to my friend from Nevada, that is, in essence, the debate that we heard in 1996. Just substitute a date and put it 3 or 4 years into the future. Those are the opening comments made by the chairman of the Energy Committee that we just heard. This is the nuclear utility refrain. It has become kind of a mantra, their Holy Grail, and, in point of fact, as the senior Senator from Nevada well knows, that is simply not the case. That is scare tactics; that is hysteria.

Mr. BRYAN. I cannot, and, in point of fact, every nationally recognized environmental group that I can think of has indicated its strong opposition to this legislation as being unsound environmental policy. I think the point that the Senator from Nevada makes is a good point. Frequently, in what I would refer to most respectfully and charitably as convoluted logic, I have heard S. 104 characterized as an important piece of environmental legislation. That would give new meaning to environmental legislation. No environmental organization, as the senior Senator points out, supports this legislation and, again, for the basic reason that it is unnecessary and it is bad policy. It simply is not good policy.

Mr. BRYAN. Absolutely true.

Mr. BRYAN. I think that is absolutely essential. And that is one thing that has beleaguered this legislation, dating back to the 1982 act. As the Senator from Nevada knows, because of the nuclear utilities' constant driving, pushing, insisting upon unrealistic deadlines, trying to shortcut science, this act has faced a considerable series of failures. And, as the board has pointed out from time to time, this is not something that you can rush. Indeed, it is something that needs to be very carefully reviewed. And because there is this constant pressure by the nuclear lobby to constrict the timelines, to shorten all of the opportunities for public comment, this legislation, and S. 104, would certainly fit within the same category--is not going to enjoy public confidence. Indeed, the very point that the Senator has made on many occasions on the floor is true, that the 1998 timeframe, which has been invoked by the proponents of S. 104 as if it were a date carved in stone, attested to by all of the deities, is, in fact, a deadline which the scientific community urged not to be placed in the legislation for the very reason the Senator inquired of the junior Senator from Nevada, the timeline was unrealistic. So, now, in effect they are using their argument of 1998 to, in effect, bootstrap their argument that 1998 will come and there will be no permanent resolution to it, and, therefore, we need this ill- conceived proposal that is before us.

Mr. BRYAN. They are. They are not motivated by any political, geographic, sectional, or partisan bias. They are chosen because they have the preeminent qualifications. I believe the senior Senator was off the floor when I made the observation, we have had two successive technical review boards --the one that made its report in 1996, which the Senator will recall was part of our debate. But a new board, constituted under the distinguished chairmanship of the dean, as you just referenced, they have looked at the issue and have reached the same conclusion. So, here you have a board of preeminent scientists examining the issue in 1996 and they reached the conclusion which you have just declared, namely that it is unnecessary, there is no advantage to it, indeed it is bad public policy. And, now the 1997 board, essentially consisting of new members, but equally eminent and distinguished scientists, has reached the same conclusion.

Mr. BRYAN. I yield to the senior Senator from Nevada. Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent during the duration of the consideration of S. 104 that floor privileges be extended to two more members of my staff, Jean Neal and Andy Vermilye.

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.