Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey). (Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remaining time. We do not use biological weapons in Afghanistan. We do not use chemical weapons in Afghanistan. We do not use this present generation of nuclear earth penetrators in Afghanistan because we know it is wrong, and because we just have to ask al Qaeda how well our existing conventional bombs did in destroying them. I have not heard anyone say that there was some problem that needed nuclear weapons to be dropped on Afghanistan. The consequences of opposing the Markey amendment will be that a new generation of nuclear testing, breaching the test ban between the United States and the Soviet Union, sending a signal to countries all around the world that nuclear weapons are now usable, even though we do not need them in Afghanistan, we do not need them in Iraq; we can destroy, level those countries. If we use nuclear weapons in Tora Bora, it will only be in order to ensure that the rubble is bouncing, not that we have destroyed the entire country already with conventional weapons. This is the wrong road to go down. We are breaching a barrier which would be a very serious mistake for our country.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes. A congressional expert is an oxymoron. There is no such thing. Congressmen are only experts compared to other Congressmen. They are not experts compared to real experts in any field. Here, what we have is a decision made by congressional experts, us, to pick Nevada because they have the smallest delegation. That is why it happened. And now, unsurprisingly, there are 293 unresolved environmental issues related to a group of Congressmen picking the site to bury all nuclear waste in the United States for the next 10,000 years. Now, Members of Congress are different in many ways, but one of the things they pretty much share in common is a very limited scientific background, and so it is no surprise that all of these issues remain unresolved. Now, what do we have on our hands, then? We have a thermonuclear Ponzi game. The generation that in fact enjoyed the benefits of nuclear power, and by the way there has not been a new nuclear power plant ordered successfully in the United States since 1974, we are coming up to the 30th anniversary, wants to pass on the risks to the next generation. It's a Ponzi game. We are dumping it on the next generation. Let them figure out what the environmental health and safety problems are. We are getting it off our hands right now. We are congressional experts. Now, what is the complication? Well, since September 11, in addition to all those environmental issues, we have the problem now of al Qaeda. Now, what have we learned in the caves and the computers of Afghanistan? What we have learned is that al Qaeda has placed nuclear at the very top of their terrorist targets. And so what we know is that the security that is going to have to be placed around the transportation of all of this nuclear waste must be much higher than anyone anticipated before September 11. Have we had the hearings on that subject? Have we determined what the cost of that might be? Here is what we also know. There have been two major rail accidents in the United States over the last 3 weeks. Now, what if it was a nuclear waste shipment? And what if the train was deliberately derailed by al Qaeda in some small town or city across the United States; and then, with conventional weapons attached to the nuclear waste, a dirty bomb was exploded? Is that possible? Well, post September 11, we know that they arrive in very large numbers, 20; they are very technically sophisticated; they are suicidal, and they have the technical capacity to be able to execute little drills like that. So it seems to me before we begin the process of putting a trainload or a truckload of nuclear waste on the road every 4 hours for the next 24 years, that we have a responsibility to answer these questions. But because the nuclear industry and a pro-nuclear Bush administration just wants this issue to move so fast down the track that these questions do not get answered. We will not have that debate here in Congress. And that is as wrong as abandoning the intergenerational responsibility that we have to the next generation of Americans that did not create this nuclear waste but will run the risk of all of the dangers inherent in storing it in Nevada and transporting it on the roads and railways of this country. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time to once again state that we are at a historic juncture, that we should not be making this decision with 293 unresolved environmental issues. We owe the American public, we owe the next generation a higher standard of care than rushing to this decision today. Mr. Speaker, I yield the final time remaining to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley), the heroine who has been championing this issue to protect her people.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. MARKEY. Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Speaker, this is a historic occasion. Twenty years ago on this floor we passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. In that bill there was a decision made by Congress that there would be 5 geologic repositories that would be studied, and ultimately 2 would be selected, 1 on the east of the Mississippi and 1 to the west of the Mississippi. But between 1982 and 1987, two factors raised their heads: One, parochialism. The States of Texas, of Washington, of Louisiana, of Tennessee, of New Hampshire, in other words, all of the States that were being considered that had powerful political delegations, said take our States off the list. And the search was begun by this body to find one State that had just two Members of Congress and two Senators because that is the way ultimately in 1987 when the Congress revisited the issue that it was resolved; not on scientific grounds, not on the basis of finding the best geologic repositories east and west of the Mississippi, but rather selecting the smallest State with the smallest number of elected representatives, and that turns out to be the State of Nevada, which was delivered the nuclear queen of spades by every other State that did not want it in their State. Now, what happens? Well, then ultimately any Member who opposes science being trumped by politics is called anti-nuclear by the States that do not want it in their States, even though in most of those States they have nuclear power plants. We wind up in this Alice-in- Wonderland debate where the poor State of Nevada is here now raising the point that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has identified the fact that there are still 293 unresolved environmental health and safety issues, and asking the Congress and asking the administration to wait until those issues are resolved until any movement forward is made on the issue. But because of a second major issue, special interest, that is the nuclear power industry, the Congress, as they did in 1982, as they did in 1987, says no, we cannot wait. We must now continue forward. It is this indifference to the very legitimate concerns that are being raised by the State of Nevada which should be most troubling to Members here today. The nuclear power industry may want this. Other States that could have been considered for the repository, and might have been better long term 10,000-year locations for the waste, may want this. States that have 6 or 8 nuclear reactors in them but do not want the nuclear repository and want the waste out of their State may want this, but it is wrong for us to move forward today when we can move forward next year or the year after if the 293 environmental health and safety questions have not been resolved, because the decision we make today creates an inexorable pressure on investments already made, decisions already made that will buy us those environmental health and safety decisions over the next 2 and 3 years, and ultimately bad decisions will be made that will compromise the environment.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Rivers). (Ms. RIVERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. If I may at this point, there was an hour divided evenly between opponents and proponents, and generously, the majority has relinquished 20 of its 60 minutes to the minority that shares the same views in support of Yucca Mountain.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Mr. MARKEY. The request was that I be allowed to recognize----

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the leader of the Democratic Party of the House. (Mr. GEPHARDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, just so we get the record straight here, this facility which is being contemplated will only hold 60 percent of all of the nuclear waste in the United States, military or civilian. It does not solve the problem. In addition, all nuclear waste generated at all nuclear power plants has to sit next to the plant for 5 years anyway in each one of the States to cool down, so it does not solve that problem either. In addition, we also have the question of the casks into which they are going to place the waste. The Department of Energy only has 2 years of corrosion data to extrapolate out for 10,000 years. Mr. Speaker, Neil Young used to have a song, ``Rust Never Sleeps.'' And again, we are pushing the envelope, with congressional experts deciding that we have the answer to where all of this nuclear waste is going to be stored, in corrodible material and could ultimately leach out into the mountain, out into the aquifers. Finally, the Mobile Chernobyl issue, with terrorism now rearing its head, we have not answered those questions yet. How much will it cost? How safe can we make the railways, the highways, the byways of our country?

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), the ranking member of the Committee on Resources.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 11 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar). (Mr. OBERSTAR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I would advise the gentleman that it started in my district, which is why I am an expert.

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega). (Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)