Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. MARKEY. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, so this amendment is the mobile Chernobyl amendment. It will be coming through Members' districts. The police, the local PTAs, everyone will be asking questions. When they are told that the drivers are not liable, that the railroad companies are not liable, there are going to be a lot of questions to answer. If there is only going to be one yes vote on recommittal, vote to include this liability for our districts when it is coming through our hometowns.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, this recommittal motion is the amendment the nuclear industry does not want Members to vote on, which is why the Committee on Rules did not put it in order. The reason that the nuclear industry does not want us to vote on this amendment is that, as opposed to Nevada getting all the waste, or the nuclear site having the waste taken from it, this amendment deals with the transportation of the waste through Members' districts and what the liability is of the trucking company, of the rail company that has responsibility for this material. Throughout the entire night last night we heard that an accident cannot happen, that these cannisters are so strong, and if a train hit the cannister, the train would be hurt. We were told that the Governor does not have to certify that transport is safe. We were told that the mayors and the local selectmen do not even have to have a role in public health or safety. But, buried in this bill is a total indemnification against liability of the trucking or the rail company if an accident occurs in Members' districts. Mr. Speaker, 43 States are going to have these materials riding through them. What happens if the trucking company engages in gross misconduct, if the trucking company engages in gross negligence? They are still not liable. Mr. Speaker, if the truck driver is on antidepressants, is drunk, is driving 80 miles an hour, careens into our community with this nuclear material, the company is not liable. My amendment makes the company liable. That is the only way we are going to make them accountable, to make sure they hire good drivers, to make sure they have the right kinds of protections built into the trucks, into the railcars. That is what this amendment is all about, plain and simple, just accountability for the companies who are carrying this dangerous material through every one of our districts. That is where it hits our districts, where it hits our people. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Nevada [Mr. Ensign].

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while. I now realize the correctness of the provision.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. This is a great amendment. This bill puts a cap on how much money is going to be collected for the permanent and interim storage facility, and then it says that the money for the permanent repository will be expended for the interim facility. Because of wholesale and pretty soon retail competition in the marketplace, we know that there are going to be fewer and fewer nuclear power plants because they cannot compete economically. Connecticut Yankee closed down this year. Maine Yankee is about to close. The only place from which you can generate revenues from this are nuclear power plants. All the other power plants do not have to kick in. What is going to happen in the year 2002 is we may find that Yucca Mountain is not suitable, we will have run out of money, we will need more, there will not be any, we are going to have to pick a new State for the site. We know it will be a State with fewer than 3 Members of Congress. Maybe it will be a territory, I do not know, but once we do, we are going to have to go through the whole process again. Where will the money come from? Under the proponents' amendment, all of the money will come out of the taxpayers' pockets, even those that never had a single kilowatt of nuclear-generated electricity. That is wrong. The money should come from those that in fact enjoyed the benefit.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remaining 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, the people in Nevada and the people of this country were told in the 1940's and the 1950's that they were not going to be exposed to undue amounts of radiation when the nuclear test blasts were going off in that part of America. Well, it turns out that this summer, after holding this information for the last 40 to 45 years, that the Federal Government now tells us that, in fact, millions of Americans were exposed to unhealthy levels of iodine, unhealthy levels of strontium 90 in locations that had never before been considered, not just in Nevada but all over the United States, wherever the plume of those explosions carried by the winds might have endangered health and safety. Well, once again we have the Federal Government sitting here picking a start, 100 millirems. We decide. ``Do not worry about it. Bring your children. Bring your pregnant wife. Do not worry about it.'' We have no right, we have no business, especially after what we have learned this past summer about what the Federal Government did in Nevada and surrounding States in the 1950's.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nevada [Mr. Ensign].

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kucinich].

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, if it is facing the Upton statue, I would be more than willing.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Nevada [Mr. Gibbons].

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, it is one thing when they tell us, as proponents of this legislation, that we really do not have to be concerned about it traveling down the highway and we really do not have to give any authority to local mayors or Governors, even the FEMA, to be able to properly protect public safety. But it is another thing, Mr. Chairman, when the Congress determines that a human being can be exposed to 100 millirems of radiation at this site with no health consequences for the individual. In other countries in the world, they have much different standards than are built into this bill. In Canada, it is one millirem a year. In Finland and Switzerland, it is 10 millirems a year. In France, it is 25 millirems a year. But here the Congress is going to decide that pregnant women, children can be exposed to 100 millirems a year, even though we know that at that level, one in 286 people exposed to that level of radiation will, in fact, contract fatal cancer. Now, I can understand how we can pretend that the canisters cannot break. I can understand how we can pretend that the driver will never get drunk. But we cannot pretend that science does not exist. We cannot pretend that the National Academy of Sciences does not exist. And we cannot pretend to be experts. A congressional expert is an oxymoron. We are only experts compared to each other. We are not experts compared to real experts, radiation experts, medical people. Where do we get off picking 100 millirems knowing that one in 286 people exposed will in fact contract fatal cancer? By the way, this 100 millirems is on top of all of the other radiation exposure that a human being is exposed to in the course of a year. It is absolutely unbelievable. Now, the second part of my amendment deals with the absolutely, I think, preposterous leap that there can be no human intrusion at Yucca Mountain for 1,000 years. That is, by assuming that, we do not have to build in any extra environmental protections. Now, we have no idea if some nuclear Indiana Jones nine centuries from now might be wandering around some desolate location in Nevada not knowing what went on back in the Congress in 1997. And perhaps we have not left behind some nuclear Rosetta stone, because perhaps English is not being spoken in that part of the world at that time, and they come across this site. Well, this bill assumes that Indiana Jones cannot break in, cannot wander in with their entire tribe and be exposed to this incredible blast of radiation that will hit them as soon as they crack through. All of it, of course, contributing to the ridiculous final picture of what is being sold out here on the floor, is just an attempt to run roughshod over EPA, over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, over the FEMA, over Governors, over mayors, over selectmen, over individual Americans and over unsuspecting-centuries-from-now individuals that might run across this site. I ask, Mr. Chairman, for this amendment to be adopted. My amendment restores the EPA as an agency which will have to establish the minimal radiation exposure for human beings at this site. My amendment pulls back the assumption that no human intrusion is possible and, as a result, says we have got to build in protections upon the assumption that it just might happen at some time. We are burying this for 10,000 years, longer than all recorded history to this moment. And this Congress is sitting around in committees making decisions about how much protection we are going to be giving to people centuries from now. I do not think so. I do not think we have that kind of wisdom, congressional experts that we may be. So I ask that the Markey amendment be adopted for the protection near term of the women, the children, the men who are going to be exposed to the millirems in the construction of this site and working around this site, and I ask that it be adopted for future generations as they may be exposed unwittingly to this facility. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, if it is so very safe to ship these materials under the legal regime which has been established under this bill, then the sponsors should not have any problems with this amendment. All we really do here is say if FEMA determines that there is insufficient funds that have been appropriated for emergency response teams, then we have to basically deal with that issue. But we have reached a point here now where we are saying we have got an unfunded mandate where we are not going to help out the State or the local municipality in dealing with this issue. We are telling the Governors they do not have any authority here to deal with it. And now we are turning to the FEMA and we are saying that this very safe material is stuff that we do not even want FEMA to have to certify that they have enough money to be able to handle it. Mr. Chairman, I think that the proponents of this bill do protesteth too much about how safe it is while at the same time telling Governors, mayors, FEMA to butt out in terms of questioning, in fact, the real protections given to the public.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I am a very strong believer in Thomas Jefferson's belief in States' rights, the rights of States to assert their legitimate authority over that which takes place in their domain. I hate it when I see Members of Congress out trampling on an individual State's ability to act, on a Governor's right to protect a State's own citizens, especially when we are told that we do not even have to make the truck drivers liable because it is so safe. They cannot even have an accident if they tried. It is in containers that cannot break, so we are told. Well, as a result, we are going to suspend the Governor's right to be able to ask a few questions, but it is over a subject that they are telling us is absolutely harmless. Again, I think if Thomas Jefferson were here, he would be very suspicious of a central government telling the State to trust us, we are sending through cannisters of highly dangerous materials, but they do not have to worry because the central government has taken care of them. That is where I think Alexander Hamilton was always questioned by Thomas Jefferson. I hate to see it when Members are out usurping the legitimate right of Governors on this kind of a matter.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. You know, this is one item in the Contract With America that passed the House of Representatives overwhelmingly. Almost everyone agreed that there should be some risk assessment when the Federal Government is getting into these major Federal projects. We were guaranteed that there would not be any danger, because there was not going to be any delay, because that was not the objective, and now we get the perfect example of where it should apply. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller]. (Mr. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Chairman, as George Gershwin might say, ``It's very clear, plutonium is here to stay. Not for a year, but forever and a day. The Rockies may crumble, Yucca may tumble, they're only made of clay. But plutonium is here to stay.'' That is the problem, Mr. Chairman. It is here to stay; 10,000 years, 20,000 years. Nobody knows how long. This bill presumes that it is very safe. ``Do not worry about it: We are picking Nevada,'' says the Congress. ``We do not have any geologic or scientific evidence that supports our decision, but we have decided that we are getting it off of all the sites that it has been generated at and we are moving it to Nevada.'' Mr. Chairman, in this legislation, we are going to suspend a lot of protections which we give to Americans. We are going to decide here today that each American could be exposed to 100 millirems of radiation. Now, in Sweden the standard is 10. In Switzerland it is 10. In Canada it is 1. Even at the New Mexico waste isolation pilot project, it is 15 millirems. But here, we are going to say that for every 286 persons exposed, that one of them will contract a cancer. We are going to decide that today. We are going to establish a level that does not allow the EPA to set these standards. We will decide them. That is what this bill says, and that is wrong. What else does the bill do? It says that it will be transported through 40 States of the Union in trucks and railroad cars, totally indemnifying the trucking and railroad firms from any liability, even if they are engaged in willful misconduct, gross negligence. They are not liable. Now what disincentive as a result exists for these contractors to ensure that they have not hired drivers who drink excessively in the evening, take antidepressants and then jump behind the wheel and drive 100 miles an hour through tunnels in highly populated population areas in our country? None. This bill allows that to happen. They are not liable. And who pays if there is an accident? Believe it or not, it is the ratepayers who will pick up the tab, the very people who may have been victimized by an accident created in their neighborhoods. And fourth, we have the Holy Roman Empire provision on NEPA. They used to say that the Holy Roman Empire was an oxymoron. It was not really holy, Roman, or an empire. Well, that is what we have got here with the Environmental Impact Statement that is built into this bill. It really does not evaluate the environment, it does not measure the impact it is going to have on a community, and it is not much of a statement. But at least we have got the words in there. Then we have the ``interim storage'' oxymoron. We have put a cap on how much money we are going to raise from now on from nuclear utilities for permanent and interim storage. We are going to spend most of it on the interim storage. We are going to build something that is above ground and interim, and we are going to pretend that we are going to come back and still have a permanent waste repository built in this country. A vote for this bill is a vote to kill a permanent repository in the United States permanently. This is an interim storage bill to just get it off the books from the utility executives of today, and forget about any permanent solution. Mr. Chairman, I hope that the Members who are listening to this debate vote for the amendments to protect the American public.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I will include for the record letters from Erskine Bowles, the Chief of Staff to the President; Franklin Raines, the Director of OMB; and a formal statement of administration policy expressing opposition to the bill and the recommendation of the President's advisors that the bill be vetoed. Mr. Chairman, we are at a very bad point right now. There was at least at the beginning of the discussion of the disposal of all nuclear wastes in the United States some integrity in the process back in 1982. We set out to find the site, east of the Mississippi, west of the Mississippi, wherever it may be. But in 1987, we came back here to Congress, and many people were very upset about what was going on. They might have been pro nuclear, but they did not want the waste in their district. So we passed another bill in 1987. What did we say? Well, the Chairman of the House then came from Texas. He said, ``I don't want it in Texas.'' That was one of the sites. The second site was in Washington State. The majority leader came from Washington State. He said, ``I don't want it in Washington State.'' It was out. The third State was the salt domes in Louisiana. The Chairman of the Committee on Energy came from Louisiana. He said, ``I don't want it in Louisiana,'' and it was out. The fourth site was in North Carolina. The ranking Republican on the Committee on Commerce came from North Carolina. North Carolina was out. The fifth site was the solid granite of New Hampshire, and Ronald Reagan and George Bush said, ``That is out in 1988. We are not burying all the nuclear waste in America in New Hampshire.'' So we kept searching, playing this game of thermonuclear hearts, trying to stick the queen of spades with somebody. So we looked around, and what did we find? We found the State of Nevada, two Congressmen, two Senators. ``You get all the nuclear waste. We are picking you.'' Even that had some integrity. At least they were going to have to determine whether or not the site was suitable for all the nuclear waste. But, today, we come back again. We are not happy with that. There are still five years until the year 2002, from deciding whether or not, in fact, Yucca Mountain is the right place for all the nuclear waste, but we cannot wait. So what are we doing here today? We are going to decide to take all of the nuclear waste in America, put it on trucks, put it in railroad cars, and ship it to Nevada, and put it in an above-ground mausoleum that is going to be finished in 2002, just in time to have the site characterization process by scientists and geologists tell us that Yucca Mountain is not the right place for a permanent repository. As a result, we will have to begin the process all over again to find the right site, and eventually we will have to pack all the nuclear waste up again, put it back in vans and trucks and railroad cars, and send it to another place in America. Why are we doing this? We are doing this not because there is some emergency at any nuclear facility in America. In fact, we are told that it is 100 percent safe at every facility right now. We are doing this because the nuclear industry does not want a permanent repository. They do not want to have to pay for it. They promised the American people that nuclear power was going to be too cheap to meter, and that they were going to be able to bury the waste permanently. We now know it is the most expensive way of generating electricity. Wall Street killed nuclear power it wasn't some ponytailed, granola-chomping protest force outside a nuclear power plant. Secondly, they do not know where to bury the nuclear waste and they do not have any intention of paying for it, and they want us to pretend here today that we are going to do something about it and stick the queen of spades with the State of Nevada. Well, Mr. Chairman, this is a completely irresponsible position to take. It is intergenerationally irresponsible for this generation to stick the next generation with the job and the cost of burying all this waste. This is a bad bill. It is bad environmental policy. It is bad fiscal policy, and it is bad policy intergenerationally. I urge a no vote on this bill as strongly as I can of any bill that has ever come out on this House floor. Mr. Chairman, I include the letters referred to earlier for the Record. The White House, Washington, October 28, 1997. Hon. Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Speaker: It is my understanding that the House of Representatives soon will consider H.R. 1270. I am writing to reiterate the Administration's objection to this legislation. If the bill were presented to him in its current form, the President would veto it. As I have stated previously, the Administration is committed to resolving the complex and important issue of nuclear waste storage in a timely and sensible manner, consistent with sound science and the protection of public health, safety, and the environment. The Federal government's long-standing commitment to permanent, geologic disposal-- reflected in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982--should remain the basic goal of high-level radioactive waste management policy. Any decision on the siting of an interim storage facility should be based on objective, science-based criteria, and be fully protective of public health and safety and the environment. This bill is unacceptable to the Administration because it falls far short of those goals. Additionally, H.R. 1270 does not contain provisions to offset potential deficit increases in its early years; consequently, if the bill were enacted, any deficit effects could contribute to a sequester of mandatory spending in each of FY 1999 through 2001. Secretary Pena and the entire Administration remain committed to working cooperatively with the Congress and with all involved stakeholders on nuclear waste disposal issues within the confines of the President's policy. The Department is on an aggressive schedule to resolve the key unresolved scientific and technical questions about Yucca Mountain. Sincerely, Erskine B. Bowles, Chief of Staff to the President.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Cummings].

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, we are making one of the most important environmental decisions that the Congress has ever been confronted with. We are going to take all of the nuclear waste that has ever been generated at any nuclear powerplant in the United States, and we are going to find one location somewhere in the United States, and we are going to dump it all there. Now, one would think on an issue of such grave importance that we would have a very well-thought-out scientific process that we would use. In fact, we are doing just the opposite. In 1982, we did set up a process that would find the best scientifically obtainable site in the United States. And in 1987, Congress got a little frustrated and they said, no, we are not going to have that search. We are going to pick Yucca Mountain in Nevada. We do not know if that is the right site, but we are picking it. Congress is picking it. Not geologists, not scientists, but Congress picked it. Now it is 10 years later and Congress is unhappy with the pace of 10 years of the Reagan and Bush administrations and 5 years of the Clinton administration's DOE trying to determine if this site is the right place. So what are we saying today? We are saying, we are not going to bury it permanently at Yucca Mountain. We are giving up on a permanent burial. We are going to build an above-ground mausoleum for all this stuff and we are going to ship it across the country to this site. We are giving up. We are going to have a vote here today to never bury nuclear waste permanently in the United States. We are building an above-ground facility. We are sticking this nuclear queen of spades, because no one else wants it, with Nevada. They lose. Fifty States, 50 cards, they lose. And they lose because Texas does not want it. Louisiana does not want it. Washington State does not want it. Massachusetts does not want it. New York does not want it. You can be pronuclear all you want, but when we say, how would you like all the spent fuel from nuclear powerplants, it is, not in my backyard, no thanks. We are picking Nevada. So I asked the committee for a rule, if you are going to ship all of this stuff across America in trucks. Guess what they do? They say that for the purposes of ensuring that we get it off site in all these individual States, we are going to have in this bill something that says that it is not a major Federal action. That is right, Mr. Speaker. This bill says that putting all the nuclear waste in America on railroad cars, in trucks shipping it to Nevada, storing it there for 10,000 years is not a major Federal action. As a result, you suspend NEPA, the constitution of the environment of the United States, and the National Environmental Policy Act. We suspend it. So we can assume a lot of things. We can assume it is going to be safe. We can assume that we do not need extra protections. That is what we are doing here. Not scientists, not geologists, not physicians, Congress is assuming it is going to be safe, nuclear waste. Nobody wants it. ``Don't get it near me.'' It is like kryptonite. ``Don't get it near my district.'' We are going to assume it is safe. So, believe it or not, in this bill they say that if there is a trucking company and they get the contract from DOE to ship all this stuff in thousands of truckloads all across the country, that the trucking company is indemnified against any lawsuit even if they engage in willful gross misconduct. That is right. If they hire truck drivers who are drunk, who are on antidepressants, who are driving after midnight 100 miles an hour through our neighborhood and they crash through our neighborhood and leave a nuclear waste dump there for generations, we cannot sue the trucking company. Now, I asked for an amendment to be placed in order, that at least we can make the trucking company liable. If someone brought nitroglycerin through our neighborhood and there was an explosion, we could sue them. If they brought TNT through our neighborhood and it exploded, we could sue them. But if they bring nuclear waste through the neighborhood, we here this Congress are saying the trucking company should not be liable. My amendment has not been allowed to be put in order. And why is that? Because this generation that enjoyed nuclear power does not want to pay the price of burying this waste permanently. It is going to cost a lot of money. Instead, we engage in a thermonuclear ponzi game. We get the benefit of the electricity. We pass on to three or four generations from now the responsibility of finding a way of burying it because we are not going to do it. Today is the official buck-passing day intergenerationally. In the same way that Congress irresponsibly for 20 years kept passing on the deficit to the next generation, we are now doing the same thing with environmental issues. Rather than bearing the burden today for the benefits that this generation received from the electricity generated from this source of power, we are all saying here today, well, we get a lot of electric utility executives that just want it off-site. Do we think they are ever going to call back again once they get it off-site? I do not think so. This rule should have more opportunities for amendments to be made to cure the defects that are in it. I hope that the Members vote ``no.''