Sen. Cantwell's Floor Statement on Proposed Reclassification of Nuclear Waste
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the Graham amendment.
It is almost unbelievable that we are on the DOD authorization bill, a very important bill that we need to discuss and move forward, as it supports a lot of important things for our troops, and our military strategy. But somehow the other side of the aisle and the Department of Energy think they can sneak in language to this Defense authorization bill that would allow the reclassification of hazardous, high-level nuclear waste and basically call it incidental waste. Basically it would reclassify nuclear waste that is in existing tanks in my State, in South Carolina, in Idaho, and in New York, and basically say that waste can be covered over with cement, with sand, and could be grouted. Basically, it says we can take high-level nuclear waste and grout it--grout it.
For most Americans, grout is something they see in their bathroom, not something they do with nuclear waste. Yet this is what we have before us in the underlying Department of Defense authorization bill. It is a shame. It is a shame that this body would allow such a significant change, really a change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act on how nuclear waste is classified in this country, without public debate, without a public vote, without a public hearing, even without legislation discussing that change. Yet the other side of the aisle thinks they can come at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and offer an amendment to change 30 years of policy, and that in the blink of an eye, they are going to get a vote on changing that policy without discussion.
The underlying bill is flawed. As far as I am concerned, it has made the whole DOD bill radioactive itself. Why do they play politics on an issue that is so important to our country? Why do they try to sneak through a change that ought to be debated in public in full daylight, with people weighing in on what is appropriate science?
Mr. President, if I sound as if I am a little upset about this underlying bill and the fact that it has this sneak attack language to reclassify high-level nuclear waste, you are right.
Fifty-three million gallons of nuclear waste reside at the Hanford nuclear reservation in the State of Washington.
This Senator wants to see that waste cleaned up. I do not believe that can happen by pouring cement on top of it and putting sand in those tanks and all of a sudden now say we have cleaned up waste. Nowhere has that policy been promulgated as sound science.
This is a picture of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and one of its reactors in proximity to the Columbia River. My constituents in Washington State already know the 53 million-gallon tanks of nuclear waste are leaking, and there are toxic plumes that have already gained access to the Columbia River. So, yes, Washington State wants the tanks to be cleaned up. They want the material that has been part of the nuclear mission of this country removed from the tanks, the tanks cleaned up, the ground cleaned up, the plumes removed to the best possible extent, in order for us to go on with our mission and our life at the Hanford Reservation.
What we do not want is somebody to come in and say all of a sudden these underground storage tanks that exist below ground should be taken and cement poured on top of them and that means they are cleaned up.
It is amazing to me because when I think about the Hanford project and what I think it meant to our country, these were men and women in 1943 who started on a mission to produce a product that would help us win the war. In less than 2 years, they had the world's first reactor going and they produced plutonium that provided a very valuable tool for our country. Those men and women did their job.
Now we have been left with the aftermath of that and we should handle it in the same professional way those men and women did, by cleaning up the waste and recognizing that these tanks are leaking and they are causing hazard to the environment. The appropriate way to clean them up is by making sure the material is removed and that that material is placed in a more permanent storage. That is exactly what science has been saying. Yet my colleagues believe that in this underlying bill, the Defense authorization, it was somehow appropriate, in a closed-door session, with no public, no public testimony, no public witness to this language, no bill saying they were going to put this in the DOD bill, they can now sneak through this policy.
Well, thank God some people in America are paying attention because they are starting to respond. I will share some of that with my colleagues. For example, the Idaho Falls Post Register basically said those on the other side are choosing the wrong side.
What happened in this case is the Department of Energy--maybe I should stop for a second and give some of my colleagues a little reminder of how we got to this point, because everybody thinks reclassification of waste is something that belongs to the States. It does not belong to the States. It belongs in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that was passed in 1982. That was passed by Congress, after much debate. It went through the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the EPW Committee. They had a discussion about what nuclear waste cleanup should be. They have the authority.
So when the Department of Energy recently said ``let us accelerate the cleanup of waste, let us do it faster, we have an idea, instead of removing all of the material from these tanks we can just pour cement and sand on top of it and somehow we can get this done quicker and cheaper''--I am sure everybody in America agrees that pouring sand and cement on top of the waste that is there instead of cleaning it up is cheaper. But no one says it is safer and no one says it satisfies current law in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
That is why when the Department of Energy tried to use an order basically reclassifying waste, saying, ``let us try this accelerated cleanup, let us try this notion of grouting and see if it, in fact, is the way we can do this.'' The courts have said the Department of Energy does not have that authority to reclassify the waste; the definition lies within the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and DOE was not consistent with that act.
So what did the Department of Energy do when they lost that case? Yes, it is on appeal. They can go through the appeal process. But instead of coming to Congress and asking for public hearings on changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, saying, ``listen, we think some waste that ought to be able to be reclassified,'' they have snuck language into the DOD authorizing bill.
Let me be clear again. Sneaking in language is having a closed-door session, without public debate, without public scrutiny, without a hearing on the change in this reclassification.
Now all of a sudden we are presented with this bill and people think we ought to move ahead without removing this radioactive language that is in the DOD bill, which I say has no business being here. If people want to debate this policy, let us debate it in the broad daylight of a hearing and discuss what hazardous waste is and the changes to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that might be appropriate.
I guarantee, if somebody wants to change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, that bill would not go to the Senate Armed Services Committee. It would be a policy that was debated by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and by the EPW Committee. It is not the Armed Services Committee's jurisdiction to change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. This underlying bill basically will put in place language contradictory to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
What are newspapers around America saying about this? Basically, the Idaho Falls Post Register says, ``if the courts are uncooperative, try blackmail. That is what DOE is doing by holding $350 million in cleanup funds, including $95 million for Idaho's national engineering and environmental laboratory.
They go on to say, ``if blackmail fails, start cutting deals in secret with Congress. DOE found an ally and behind closed doors in the Senate Armed Services Committee won a provision in the Defense authorization bill that would allow DOE to reclassify the high-level Savannah River waste.''
I think they said it best when they said the view from Boise is more accurate, and that Kempthorne, the Governor, believes the measure ``would wreck Idaho's position in the court by setting a precedent in short order, it would undermine the State's landmark decision.''
It goes on to say: ``Why would you reward DOE for its heavyhandedness against the State by passing something in the committee with the thinnest of claims to jurisdiction? If the Nuclear Waste Policy Act needs revision, do so in the open. Hold hearings. Conduct them in germane committees. What is going on here is not science, it is bare-knuckle politics.'' That is from the Idaho paper.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer said a similar thing: ``The Senate should halt the nuclear waste plan.'' Why? Because the bill gives the DOE the reclassification authority and withholds funds, and that this is a scheme to reclassify, hoping the States will cave in. It is not a good idea.
What did the Idaho Statesman say? Well, basically in a headline that said ``State Cleanup Faces An All or All Proposition,'' it said: ``We expect the Feds to clean up and move out all the highly radioactive liquid waste now stored in Idaho. No haggling, no shortcuts. Our political leaders need to hold firm even when politicians in other States are willing to cut deals.''
What did the Spokesman Review in my State say? I thought the Spokesman Review had an interesting take. They said: ``For example, let us say the next step would be to persuade the affected parties and the public there is scientific consensus on this matter. Without that, there will be no hope of political consensus. The U.S. Department of Energy believes leaving some waste behind is a good idea but is trying to slip this in as a seismic policy shift in the Defense authorization bill without comment or without congressional debate.''
I think these newspapers have it right. In fact, another newspaper in my State, the Tacoma News Tribune, said: ``It was bad enough that the U.S. Department of Energy was trying to carry out illegal, quick, and dirty disposal of the Nation's most dangerous radioactive waste. Now a Senate committee is helping the Department circumvent the law.''
I think these newspapers are on to it. The Buffalo News, in their editorial, called it ``A Dangerous Game.''
The Federal Department of Energy is trying to use administrative sleight of hand to avoid its responsibilities in the cleanup of nuclear waste at West Valley and several other sites. DOD is trying to downgrade the threat of nuclear waste altered in this bill. The department argues that the waste should be classified as high level based only on how it originated, not on what they are. But what they are still is bad. It's still radioactive and it's still a Federal responsibility.
That is from the Buffalo News.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have all those editorials printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
[From the Buffalo News, May 10, 2004]
Dangerous Games--Federal Effort To Bury Nuclear Wastes at West Valley Is Unconscionable
The federal Department of Energy is trying to use administrative sleight of hand to avoid its responsibility in the cleanup of nuclear waste sites at West Valley and several other states.
This contemptible effort involves downgrading the threat of nuclear waste, thereby allowing the government to bury that dangerous material at West Valley and other sites instead of shipping it to a permanent repository as called for in a 1982 law.
Fortunately, New York Sens. Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton recognized this downgrading for what it was, a threat to West Valley and surrounding areas from the possibility of future leakage of this radioactive material. After they protested the legislation, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from south Carolina who introduced the bill that would have allowed the DOE to downgrade the threat of nuclear wastes, altered his bill. It now will apply only to the waste remediation project at Savannah River, S.C.
But that doesn't remove the danger. The House, essentially led by Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay, still has to consider the DOE legislation. That cannot be a comforting thought to residents living near West Valley.
The department argues that the wastes should be classified as ``high-level'' based only on how they originated, not what they are. But what they are is still bad, still radioactive and still a federal responsibility.
Decades of expensive cleanup progress have improved safety at West Valley, but the work is far from over. The radioactive liquid wastes from a nuclear fuels reprocessing effort have been solidified into safe glass logs, which were supposed to be stored elsewhere. But the anticipated long-term storage facility at Yucca Flats is years from completion.
Tanks and residual wastes still remain at West Valley, and an underground plume of water is contaminated with radioactive strontium. Covering wastes with concrete won't help that.
The 600,000 gallons of West Valley wastes have their counterpart in nuclear weapons production wastes at other sites--53 million gallons at Hanford on the Washington-Oregon border, 34 million gallons at Savannah River near Aiken, S.C., and 900,000 gallons at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.
West Valley is the only site where the state shares the cost of cleanup.
Those costs may run into the tens of billions of dollars over decades, but the mess remains a federal issue. At West Valley, the risk includes not only the site's land but water drainage that flows into Buttermilk Creek, Cattaraugus Creek and Lake Erie. Trace amounts of that radioactivity have been tracked as far as Buffalo.
The DOE also is threatening to withhold $350 million in cleanup money from military-related cleanup efforts unless it gets a change in the definition of what constitutes high-level waste. That bit of weaseling does the department no credit. These sites were created by the federal government, and the federal government should not be allowed to walk away from them.
Acceptable cleanup at West Valley involves removal of all wastes and dismantling and removal of the contaminated structures that were used to process and store them. The government cannot be allowed to escape that responsibility through administrative trickery.
If the federal government truly could end a problem by renaming it, we'd already be at ``mission accomplished'' in Iraq.
-- [From the Idaho Falls Post Register, May 19, 2004]
Choosing the Wrong Side
Why would Idaho's two U.S. senators support the Department of Energy against their own state?
You'll have to ask them.
A big vote is coming up--possibly today or tomorrow--in the Senate.
Idaho has a lot at stake.
The outcome is expected to be close.
Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne is on the right side.
Sens. Larry Craig and Mike Crapo intend to be on the wrong side.
At issue is nearly 1 million gallons of high-level radioactive wastes stored in Idaho. The Hanford nuclear site in Washington has 53 million gallons. Savannah River in South Carolina had 37 million gallons.
Federal law says that waste may be collected and stored in a national repository. DOE wants to reclassify it, leave some material behind and save a few bucks.
But it can't get a judge to go along. Last year, U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill ruled DOE couldn't do that on its own. DOE appealed.
If the courts are uncooperative, try blackmail. DOE is withholding $350 million in cleanup funds--including about $95 million for the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.
And if blackmail fails, start cutting deals--in secret--with Congress. DOE found an ally in freshman Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Behind closed doors in the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, Graham won a provision in the Defense authorization Bill that would allow DOE to reclassify high-level wastes at Savannah River. Another provision allows DOE to continue holding cleanup funds hostage in Washington and Idaho until the accede to DOE's demands.
Fortunately, the House version contains none of this mischief. So even if the Senate goes along, there's still hope a conference committee will reject it.
Craig and Crapo say they're willing to defer to Graham on something they believe affects only his state--as long as the cleanup funds are kicked loose. They also believe Graham will be appreciative down the road when Idaho needs his help.
The view from Boise is the more accurate one, however. Kempthorne believes the Graham measure could wreck Idaho's position in the courts by setting a precedent. In short order, it would undermine the state's landmark 1995 settlement with DOE, which requires the agency to clean up the INEEL and ship wastes out of the state.
That's not to say Idaho isn't willing to negotiate. But no governor can surrender unilaterally to DOE demands without unraveling the 8-year-old truce that ended the statewide battle over the INEEL, its future and the waste issue that has raged for more than a decade.
Politically, two states are weaker than three. If South Carolina cuts a private deal on waste, Washington and Idaho are left to fight on their own.
And why would you reward DOE for its heavy-handedness against the states by passing something in a committee with the thinnest of claims to jurisdiction? If the Nuclear Waste Policy Act needs revision, do so in the open. Hold hearings and conduct them in the germane committees--Energy or Environment and Public Works.
What's going on there isn't science. It's bare-knuckle politics.
So as early as today, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., will offer a motion to strip Graham's language from the defense bill. She has the support of Graham's colleague, Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C. But it's going to be close, and the Idaho delegation could make the difference.
Does Graham may have more to offer Craig and Crapo than Idaho voters?
Maybe. Craig is in the second year of a six-year term. Crapo just got re-elected to a second term. Although the election isn't until November, Idaho Democrats have forfeited the race.
Just the same, both Idaho senators ought to reconsider.
-- [From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 18, 2004]
Senate Should Halt Nuclear Waste Plan
Senators should halt the Bush administration's Department of Energy's attempts to boss everyone around on nuclear waste policy and end run the federal courts. The administration's bullying tactics should be met with a firm refusal to submit.
The DOE has a responsibility to clean up the heavily contaminated radioactive waste in tanks at Hanford and several other sites around the country. A federal judge already has overruled the department's attempts to reclassify the waste in order to save money and leave it at the sites.
Legitimately, Energy has filed an appeal. But is has shown horrid judgment with attempts to dictate changes in federal law to evade its responsibility, blackmail states into accepting the waste and free itself of state controls.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has put language into a defense authorization bill to give the department much of what it wants. The bill would authorize reclassification of the waste in his state and let DOE withhold $350 million in cleanup money for Hanford and other sites until their states cave in to reclassification schemes.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is leading a fight against the plan. Tank waste at Hanford threatens to pollute the Columbia River. Environmental groups rightly complain about rewriting the waste law in a defense bill without public hearings.
The Senate should strip Graham's amendment from the bill. The Energy Department needs to clean up nuclear waste fully, not evade public accountability.
-- [From the Idaho Statesman, May 11, 2004]
State Cleanup Faces All-or-All Proposition
Idaho's political leaders need to hold the Department of Energy to a simple standard.
We expect the feds to clean up and move out all the highly radioactive liquid waste now stored in Idaho. No haggling and no shortcuts. Our political leaders need to hold firm even when politicians in other states are willing to cut deals.
About 900,000 gallons of high-level radioactive waste sit in underground tanks in the Eastern Idaho desert, above an aquifer that provides water for many Idaho farms and communities.
After decades of nuclear defense work in states like Idaho, it's time for the Energy Department to fully clean up the sites that helped produce the implements of the Cold War.
Unfortunately, the Energy Department has been more interested in cutting corners than in cleaning up. The agency wants to clean up most of the waste but leave a fraction of it in the tanks, sealed with grout.
The Energy Department has been trying to foist off less-than-clean cleanup as adequate and cost-effective. B. Lynn Winmill, an Idaho federal judge, ruled last year that the DOE plan violated federal law. Since then, the Energy Department has pushed the idea in Congress, and it may have a taker. With the help of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the Energy Department now has language in a defense bill limiting its cleanup obligations in South Carolina, where 34 million gallons of waste are stored at its Savannah River Plant.
The language covers only South Carolina, not Idaho. Still, it could set an alarming precedent, and could put pressure on Idaho's political leaders to cave to the federal government.
In Idaho, cleanup should be non-negotiable. Idaho has the law and Winmill on its side and has in hand a binding agreement with the feds mandating the tank cleanup. Then-Gov. Phil Batt reached a comprehensive waste cleanup deal in 1995, and Idaho voters ratified it a year later.
The deal gives Idaho leverage--but only if state officials and the Idaho delegation hold the feds to every word of it. Especially the word ``all.''
-- [From the Tacoma News Tribune, May 10, 2004]
Fix Energy Department, Not the Law It's Breaking
It was bad enough that the U.S. Department of Energy was trying to carry out an illegal quick-and-dirty ``disposal'' of some of the nation's most dangerous radioactive waste. Now a U.S. Senate committee is helping the department circumvent the law.
The law in question is the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which Congress passed in 1982. Among other things, this act requires the federal government to safely dispose of high-level nuclear waste in a deep underground repository. The law quite explicitly specifies that the radioactive byproducts of plutonium creation--a category of waste all-too-abundant at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation--must be buried in such a repository.
Despite what the law says, the Energy Department has other plans. Hanford's high- level wastes are presently being stored on site in steel-walled tanks, many of which have leaked dangerous radioisotopes into the surrounding soils. The department does intent to encase most of the wastes in these tanks in glass cylinders, which will be buried. But it also wants to leave significant quantities on site. Naturally, the idea is to save money.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act, however, doesn't say, ``Bury what's convenient, and don't spend too much trying to get the rest.'' It says, ``Bury it, bury it all, and bury it deep.'' A federal judge in Boise last year called the Energy Department on its scheme, ruling that the leave-it-in-place plan would violate the law.
Laws, however, can be altered. That is what Sen. Linsey Graham (R-S.C.) is now trying to do, so far with success. At this behest, the Senate Armed Services Committee last week amended a defense bill with a measure that partially exempts the Energy Department from the requirement that all high-level waste be sent to a repository.
The amendment applies only to South Carolina wastes, but it's a scary precedent for this state. The Energy Department has already made clear its desire for an incomplete cleanup at Hanford, the nuclear contamination capital of America.
If Congress attempts to relax the disposal standards in Washington as well, the state had better be given consultation rights and veto power over whatever plan the Energy Department comes up with. The department simply cannot be trusted to act in the interest of Washington and its environment.
As for Graham, his constituents in South Carolina ought to be giving him an earful about the prospect of living in perpetuity with the world's most lethal garbage.
-- [From the Spokesman-Review.com, May 9, 2004]
Debate Needed on Nuclear Waste
For the sake of argument, let's say leaving some lethal waste buried at nuclear weapons sites is a good idea, because the cost benefits outweigh the risks.
The next step would be to persuade affected parties and the public there is a scientific consensus on the matter. Without that, there would be no hope of a political consensus. The U.S. Department of Energy believes that leaving some waste behind is a good idea, but it is trying to slip this seismic policy shift into a defense authorization bill, without public comment or congressional debate.
Last year, DOE tried to get House-Senate conferees on an already passed energy bill to accept this change. But that bill has bogged down. Now it has found an opening in a bill that otherwise has nothing to do with energy matters. U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., is pushing the change, but according to a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article, a deputy assistant energy secretary is listed as ``author'' in supporting documents.
In effects, Graham's measure would exempt DOE from the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, allowing the agency to solely determine when a site has been ``cleaned.'' This is just the latest DOE maneuver to shut states out of the decision-making process, which is in direct conflict with the 1989 Tri-Party Agreement.
DOE has been trying to reclassify some ``high-level'' waste as ``low level'' for two years, but the states, Congress and the courts have said no. A federal judge's ruling sent DOE back to Congress to get the law changed. Such a change would have enormous implications for sites such as the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, both of which are near major rivers. DOE previously announced a plan that would redefine as ``low level'' 53 million gallons of waste at Hanford and 900,000 gallons at INEEL.
Idaho and Washington are against reclassifying the waste. Said Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington: ``Trying to rename high-level nuclear waste doesn't change the fact that it is still dangerous, toxic, radioactive sludge that needs to be cleaned up.''
Critics say another danger in allowing such waste to be reclassified and permanently buried where it sits is that it paves the way for the importation of any other waste DOE deems to be ``low level.'' Hanford could be a dumping ground for another state's waste. The National Academy of Sciences has concluded that the best approach is to bury nuclear waste deep underground. Since that conclusion, Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been chosen as the national repository.
Without a scientific or political consensus, it is unconscionable for DOE to seek such a major change on such an important matter, especially in the absence of an open debate. The agency needs to stop the repeated end-runs and make a good-faith effort to involve all affected parties if it sees the need for change.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, let's go back for a second to what this issue is as it relates to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and what the underlying change in this bill does. That is the question at hand.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle hope we can get rid of this issue in one afternoon--again, without public debate, without the scrutiny of changing the definition of highly radioactive waste. They think we should just pass what is in the underlying bill. It has only seen the daylight because of the objections of myself and other colleagues and the scrutiny of the press. That is what has gotten them now to offer the amendment on the floor. The amendment on the floor is not sufficient to strike the language relating to the reclassification of waste.
So what is the issue? In 1982, when we passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act--I wasn't here but other Members were--basically we came up with a definition. We said:
Highly radioactive material resulting from the processing of spent nuclear fuel, including the liquid waste produced in the reprocessing. .....
That is what this reactor did for us in World War II. It basically processed spent nuclear fuel and that liquid waste was then stored in tanks still at Hanford.
That the solid material derived from such waste that contains fission products in sufficient concentrations. .....
So that is what we said high-level radioactive waste was. We went on to add to the definition:
Highly radioactive material that the Commission says is consistent with the law requires permanent isolation.
That is what we said in 1982, that the spent fuel from these reactors required permanent isolation. That is what the current law says. The current law says spent fuel requires permanent isolation. That means you have to remove it from the tanks that are there, because the tanks are leaking and you cannot guarantee permanent isolation.
So the tanks have started to be cleaned up and the process for cleaning them up is underway. But now the Department of Energy wants to say, ``let's have a new definition of that.'' In fact, in the underlying DOD bill, in section 3116, it basically says:
High-level radioactive waste does not include radioactive material resulting from the processing of spent nuclear fuel.
How about that? One change in the DOD bill and billions of gallons of waste in my State is no longer high-level radioactive nuclear waste. Just like that, changing the definition. Yes, it says the Secretary can determine whether various hurdles have been scaled, but that is contradictory to the current law in the 1982 act.
I remind my colleagues this is an act that was passed through this body after hearings, after discussion. I think the process may have taken more than a year. It took more than a year to define high-level radioactive waste. Yet now we want to pass the DOD authorizing bill with this change in it and basically say, ``let's go ahead and reclassify nuclear waste.''
I am not for reclassifying nuclear waste without a debate and a discussion and, frankly, the notion that this underlying bill would reclassify it in such an inappropriate fashion, to say you could somehow call this grouting and that this would be a sufficient way to deal with the country's nuclear waste, is incredible. It is incredible that this is the scam being used on the American public just to get this process in place.
Let's go through some of the history, because as I said, I think this is really sour grapes by the Department of Energy, which has tried to get this policy pushed through and has not been successful. In fact, in 2001, basically, the Department said that they would re-create a better cleanup process. But, they said, we obviously have to get States to agree.
They came to us in Washington State and we said: We have an agreement with you about the level of waste that is going to be cleaned up under the requirements of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, so we don't really know what you mean by reclassification. At that time they refused to say that they meant they would clean up 99 percent, or all that was technically possible, of this waste.
So we in Washington State said: Listen, it doesn't sound like you have a serious plan for reclassifying waste when you just want to call it a different name. That is not an appropriate process. In fact, Washington State decided not to do that.
Wisely enough, the Idaho court basically said DOE didn't have that ability, they didn't have the ability to reclassify that waste. That is exactly why they are trying to sneak this language in today, because they would like to continue to say that they can move ahead on a plan that, sure, would save money, but who wants to save money by leaving nuclear waste in the ground, where it is leaking into the Columbia River or the Savannah River, or other areas of the country?
If somebody thinks this is an issue that affects the State of Washington, or affects just Idaho, or affects South Carolina--it doesn't. These are bodies of water, with the potential of nuclear waste in them, that flow through many parts of our country. To pass legislation without debate on changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is an incredible statement, that people are willing to override 30 years of law just to do that.
There are other issues I think we need to talk about. I am very pleased the Governor of Idaho, Governor Kempthorne, issued a release saying:
Federal legislation undermines the cleanup that was to take place in Idaho, at the Idaho facility.
In fact, Governor Kempthorne has said his opposition to the legislation that was passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee is because it allows the Secretary of Energy to withhold an estimated $95 million from cleanup funds, which is part of the debate we are going to have on the underlying amendment. But then he goes on to say:
I recognize the need to ensure public confidence in how we manage nuclear waste. This legislation would be a huge step backwards, reinforcing public fears about our Nation walking away from nuclear cleanup obligations. I am also concerned this legislation will negatively impact DOE's compliance with the 1995 court settlement case in Idaho.
I think Governor Kempthorne, who has to deal with this, just as Governor Locke does in the State of Washington, has realized what a bad deal this is for Idaho. He realizes the underlying language, when it tries to reclassify waste, is a danger.
I find it interesting that we will forget the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, no problem. We will write our own rule about what hazardous waste is. We will come up with our own definition.
The states of Washington, Idaho, Oregon, South Carolina, New Mexico, and New York filed into the court case and in their amicus brief said:
DOE cannot ignore Congress' intent ..... by simply calling [high level] waste by a different name.
South Carolina joined that case. South Carolina went to the courts, put its name on a brief, objecting to the DOE attempt to reclassify high-level nuclear waste by issuing an order.
Why all of a sudden are we now going to listen to one State tell us they have the right to decide they are going to keep nuclear waste in their State and they are going to call it something else? Nuclear waste that reaches the Savannah River does not affect just South Carolina, and a definition in statute that conflicts with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act does not just affect South Carolina; it affects everyone. That is not the way to legislate, by sneaking it in without having full public debate about this issue and the obligations we have for nuclear waste cleanup.
What has the Atomic Energy Commission said? Basically, it said in 1970 that over the life of these tanks, basically you have a problem. Basically, what you are saying when you assume that you will take those Hanford tanks or Savannah River tanks or Idaho tanks or West Valley tanks, and you are going to leave material in them and somehow put cement over the top of them and everything will be okay--that is counter to all the science we have had for 50 years.
The Atomic Energy Commission said ``over periods of centuries,''--guess what, that is what happens when you leave it in the tanks for a long period of time; you are talking about centuries--``one cannot assure the continuity of surveillance and care which tank storage requires.''
(Mr. CRAPO assumed the Chair.)
Ms. CANTWELL. They are saying if you put in high-level waste, we cannot tell what will happen to that over a long period of time. That is why the decision was made to take it out and put it in a permanent storage facility somewhere else, because these tanks do not have the capacity.
The science says that once you do the grouting of this waste, unfortunately, your opportunity to do other things is much more difficult. Once you have poured cement on the ground and solidified it, the process of getting it out and retrieving it is made immensely more difficult. In fact, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in 2004 said:
Grouting residual high-level waste in tanks that contain significant quantities of long lived radionuclides ..... Is a policy that poses considerable risk to the long-term health of the water resources in the region.
This statement is from 2004. In 2004, people have said this grouting technique, which basically is storing this in the leaking position in underground tanks, is a threat to the water resources of the region. These tanks are not more than 7 miles from the Columbia River, not 7 miles from one of the major water resources of the Pacific Northwest. It already has a plume of nuclear waste that has reached the river. Fortunately, it is at a level that we can contain today but only if we continue to clean up the tanks.
This proposal to pour cement and sand on top of it and just keep the waste in the ground has not been proven as a secure way to keep the waste intact and water resources clean. So what you are leaving us with in the Pacific Northwest--in Washington, in Oregon, in the tributaries feeding in and out of the Columbia River and into the Pacific Ocean--is the threat of 50 million gallons of nuclear waste not being cleaned up in a sufficient fashion and that waste ending up in the Columbia River. Or in the South Carolina, Savannah River. Governor Kempthorne said it right: this is a huge step backward because it reinforces the public fears about this process.
This Senator wants to have the nuclear waste cleaned up in our State. Some people may not understand the process, or some people listening to this debate may even think this is somehow about four or five States in this country. It is not about four or five States in this country and just about whether we will change the definition of high-level radioactive waste and what we will do about the definition.
That is what I am concerned about today in the underlying bill. This Nation has a responsibility--as it had a responsibility in development of the reactors, the development of the plutonium, and the development of that product--this Nation has a responsibility for the cleanup of those facilities. Oftentimes my colleagues forget about that responsibility until it comes time to do the budget and people see the huge amount of money that is spent on nuclear waste cleanup.
I would be the first Senator to say we have made mistakes in this process. It is mind-boggling to think prior to my coming here that at one point in time somebody gave contracts to a company to produce vitrified logs, and they were not going to pay them until they made the vitrification work. Somewhere along the way people figured that would not work, that the vitrification process was not underway and operating. But now we have been successful and vitrification is starting to take place. That means we are taking the nuclear waste out of the ground and solidifying it into a glass log substance and that glass log substance will then go to permanent storage. So it will be in a facility that can help store that product for an indefinite period of time. That has been the plan. That is the plan on the books. That is the plan of record.
But that is not what the DOE authorizing bill does. It says, ``no, let's reclassify that waste and say that it is not high level. Let's just call it another name, let's call it grout and say it is okay to keep in the ground, let it contaminate water, and let's keep the savings from that unbelievable shortcutting of our responsibilities in the cleanup process.'' I don't think that is something we want to do as a body and government.
I would like to talk about how this legal process worked and why DOE is attempting to do this. What my colleagues seem to want to think today is that this is all about giving the State of South Carolina the ability to negotiate with DOE what nuclear waste cleanup should be. In fact, as I said, in the underlying bill, instead of saying that high-level waste is something that needs to be retrieved, basically that spent fuel from reactors is something that needs to be retrieved from tanks and put in permanent storage, basically the DOE underlying bill says, no, high-level radioactive waste resulting from fuel process can be reconsidered and considered for a different kind of storage permanently in the tank. And that is something South Carolina and DOE can do together.
That is not what the cleanup partnership really is. The cleanup partnership is not about the State of South Carolina and the Federal Department of Energy interpreting the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in a new way by passing contradictory language.
Let's imagine for a second that we let the State of Michigan determine what the clean air standards are for the State of Michigan. Let's say that EPA and the State of Michigan decided, well, the clean air standards for Michigan are going to be at X level, and that somehow that is OK for Michigan, but somehow we do not think that is going to apply to the rest of the country.
Does anyone think that once it applies to Michigan, some other State is not going to say: How come you gave Michigan an exemption? They continue to pollute the air at a level that the rest of the country does not, which has a higher standard. We are talking about a recipe for disaster in the courts and for predictability in the process. I think it is very detrimental, where we are going with this legislation.
The court process that took place is now on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court. We are still waiting for a decision. I think the appropriate thing for the Department of Energy to do, while they are waiting for their decision on appeal, is to say they want to come to Congress and have hearings on changing radioactive waste definitions, that they want to come and have a discussion about that.
I appreciate the fact the Senator from Michigan, Mr. Levin , as this issue was discussed in the Armed Services Committee, understood the dangerous precedence of this language, and understood how important it was to get the DOD bill done. He basically asked that they not include that language in the bill.
Now, it was a closed-door session. I do not know what the real vote was. I am sure it was a closely, hotly debated issue. But, really, what they put in was section 3116, which would overturn 30 years of carefully crafted laws and 50 years of scientific consensus related to the cleanup of the Nation's radioactive defense waste.
As written, this provision--because it allows DOE to reclassify waste that, as I said, for decades has been classified as high-level waste--basically says the radioactive and chemical toxic components would stay the same. So basically the same toxic level of waste is there, but we are just going to call it another name. I appreciate the fact that the Senator from Michigan tried to change this language and prevent it from being in the bill. Unfortunately, it is in the underlying bill before us.
The underlying bill before us also created a slush fund of $350 million. I find it intriguing. I love knowing a little bit about software because when you share documents and you basically try to make changes to documents, and you e-mail those around to everybody, you can look at the text and see where the changes came from. It is very interesting, this legislation was proposed by a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. But when you check on who was really the author of the legislation, when you look at who was making the changes to the legislation, it was the Department of Energy.
The Department of Energy wrote the statute and basically submitted it to the committee, and tried to make it look like it was a Member's idea. This is coming straight from the Department of Energy, that lost a court battle, and does not want to wait for an appeal, does not want to come here and fight their battle in the daylight, but wants to try to sneak language in a bill, in the hopes these people will blink on a Thursday afternoon. Well, I am not prepared to have this bill move forward without having this discussion today about this change.
Now, what was DOE's great idea that they submitted through a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee? What was their wonderful idea? Well, besides reclassifying waste, they decided, ``well, let's create a $350 million slush fund that gives the Secretary of Energy the authority to withdraw cleanup funds from the States of South Carolina, Washington, and Idaho--until they agree with our reclassification plan.'' Basically, it was to hold them hostage and blackmail them into agreeing.
As I said, when the State of Washington was offered this deal 2 years ago, we said: ``We are not taking any deal unless we understand what you are cleaning up and how you are cleaning it up. The fact that you think you are going to reclassify and rename this is not good enough for us. Let's see the details.'' When they refused to show us that they planned on cutting cleaning up all this waste, we refused to accept the deal. Now they are hoping they will buy off some other State.
If the Department of Energy really believes science is on their side, if it really believes this grouting technique works, if it really believes this is the process we ought to pursue, then come before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, come before the EPW Committee, and debate a change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the policy that defines highly radioactive waste and how it should be cleaned up.
I think it is a tragedy, especially when you think about the good job the people did at Hanford, the process by which these people speedily got to the business of helping us in World War II, in the cold war years, and providing us with help and support. They got the job done. They did their job. Now it is our turn to do our job and clean this up.
When you are talking about 100 million gallons of highly radioactive waste that is stored in 253 deteriorating tanks in all of these States--as I said, at Hanford we have 53 million gallons of this tank waste, about 60 percent of the whole national inventory. So 60 percent is in Washington State, along with other high level waste stored in the Hanford 200-Area. That includes spent fuel and miscellaneous volumes that contain high-level waste from offsite which are also buried in the ground.
I am all for considering new technology and new ways to clean up waste and to retrieve waste that is buried in the ground that is considered high-level waste, which may have come from other States or have been basically brought to the Hanford Reservation. Some has been dumped on the Hanford Reservation and then has been part of the storage there for some time, but that is a different issue.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act makes it very clear that spent nuclear fuel from reactors needs to be placed in a permanent isolated area. That does not mean pouring cement in tanks and calling it incidental. It is very clear about that. So we can talk about other technologies to clean up other kinds of waste, or we can come back and debate changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. But because 67 of the 177 tanks that we have in Washington State have already leaked 1 million gallons of waste into the ground, that is 1 million gallons of nuclear waste, this Senator does not take this issue lightly.
DOE estimates that at Hanford, 270 billion gallons of ground water is contaminated above the drinking water standards across 80 miles of this site, and that plumes containing numerous toxins have reached the Columbia River.
I think we have another picture of the Hanford site. I encourage all my colleagues, at some point in time, to go to the Hanford site. This site is in Washington State, but this is a Federal responsibility. It is a Federal responsibility to clean up nuclear waste. It is not just the province or jurisdiction of four or five States in the country. We spend budget money on this issue, and we need to get the job done.
You can see one scene of the Hanford reservation, which is almost as big as--a third of the size--the State of Rhode Island. It is an immense property. I know the senior Senator from Washington State has joined me, and she can tell you--because she was instrumental in getting the Hanford Reach Monument created, preserving some of this as a national monument for us. On the one hand we are preserving it as a national monument and then deciding one day we are going to take high-level radioactive waste, rename it, let the plume that is already reaching the Columbia River to stay in the ground, and that somehow by putting cement and sand on it, we are all going to be OK.
Everybody wants to say how much cheaper that proposal is. I think everybody in America gets how cheap it would be to pour concrete and sand. What they want to know is whether it is safe, whether it is the right technology, whether it is going to stop the plumes or leaking tanks, whether you are going to change the current law first to get there.
This is a beautiful, pristine area of our country that we can preserve, but only if we do the job we are responsible to do, as the people who created the B reactor and created this facility were responsible in doing.
To be irresponsible today by offering this on the DOD authorizing bill and thinking we are going to have a debate about it in a few short hours and change 30 years of law and 50 years of science is shameful. It is shameful that we think we can have this kind of discussion in a few hours and wrap up a decision. If people are so sure about their position, then hold the public hearings and have the debate. Because these tanks are leaking and one million gallons have already leaked in my State. It is not something that is a tomorrow issue.
What about the science? Let's go back, so my colleagues are clear about how we got here. Congress required DOE to clean up these sites and make it a priority, and they did that in that 1982 act. That act reflected science dating back to 1950, when the National Academy of Sciences recognized that high-level radioactive waste, such as the waste at Hanford, must remain isolated from human beings and the environment long enough for the radioactivity to decay. That is a long process.
That is why the Atomic Energy Commission, a precursor to the Department of Energy, also recognized something must be done to treat high-level radioactive waste in the tanks and at these DOE sites, and they referred to ``over a period of centuries.'' As I said earlier, this isn't a problem where you think about it for a few years or even a decade. You have to come up with a solution for centuries.
Over a period of centuries, the Atomic Energy Commission wrote in 1970, ``one cannot assure the continuity of surveillance of care with storage tanks.'' Basically they said, you can't get it done with storage tanks. So the science has not changed since then.
Yet there are provisions in this bill where DOE says, let's throw out the science. And the provision in this bill would allow DOE to take 50 years of science and leave an indeterminate amount of toxic sludge in these leaky tanks and simply say: Mission accomplished. I think we have heard that statement before.
What science says is that grouting residual high-level waste in tanks that contain significant quantities of long-lived radionuclides is a policy that possesses considerable risk to the long-term health of the water resources of the region. That is what science says.
The grouting proposal that is in this bill is a considerable risk. In the State of Washington, we are very familiar with this. In Washington State, thank God our Department of Ecology has had strong reservations about grouting and we have vocalized those. For us, because it is 50 million gallons of this highly radioactive waste, it would have to have been a plan for durability for 10,000 years. That is what you would have to have. That is how radioactive the waste is.
What is bothersome is when people say an indeterminate amount, that is what DOE can decide. An indeterminate amount? The last 8 percent of the waste in the tanks has 50 percent of the radioactivity. Think about that. So we are saying in this underlying bill, go ahead, DOE. Leave an indeterminate amount in the tanks. Maybe they will say let's leave 10 percent. Maybe they will say, let's leave 5 percent. We know at 8 percent it is 50 percent of the radioactivity.
We think the grouting plan is something that is not the way to go. We set it aside in Washington State. We said that basically glassifying or vitrifying the waste was the way to go. That means that process of turning it into a glass structure so it is a solid structure and taking it to permanent storage was a better way to go.
As I said, in 2002, DOE wanted to use this accelerated initiative. We in Washington State had people come and talk to us about what accelerated cleanup was and what the schedule would be on high-level waste. And we said: We want to understand how you are going to comply with the agreements that are already on the table and with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, with the triparty agreement, because this isn't the first time the Department of Energy has had debates with the State about their responsibilities for cleanup.
I can't imagine that there is an OMB director or a DOE executive who does not come to that post and look at the numbers involved in cleanup and basically says: Boy, there has to be a way we can get this done quicker and cheaper. I am all about getting it done quicker, given that I have a million gallons already leaking and running into the Columbia River. I am all about quicker. But I am not about a plan that has not been verified by science, that has not had a hearing in a full committee as to this process and what it will mean.
Everybody gets the quick factor, but who said cleaning up nuclear waste in America should be about doing it on the cheap? It is about doing it the right way. As the Atomic Energy Commission said, it is about keeping it out of the reach of humans for centuries.
Subsequently DOE has insisted upon researching new technologies for the treatment of Hanford tanks, this new form of grout, cast stone, steam reforming, and different forms of vitrification. In all, I think there were three cases. DOE said they would still retrieve waste from the tanks, but try to treat it and bury it in steel containers and lined trenches in the Hanford site.
I can tell you, even the new and improved grout was quickly rejected by the State of Washington and by other scientists.
According to the officials at the Washington State Department of Ecology, grouting would have violated the State requirement that any alternative waste that was not performed at the vitrification objected to. And, in addition, the State found that this grouting would still pose ground water risks and create leaching; furthermore, that this would violate drinking water standards.
Even more interesting is the fact that the grouting was not to be found more efficient. In some instances, grouting wasn't found to be any cheaper than other options of cleaning up the tanks. While everybody says that pouring cement and sand on this is a great way to clean up nuclear waste, most people figured out that leaking would still happen and that nuclear waste would still need to be removed. They figured out that it was even more expensive to remove than waste.
So those are the scenarios with which we are dealing. Those are the scenarios that have been discussed. This debate--whether we want to reclassify nuclear waste and call it low-level waste and say we are going to grout it--might be new to some of my colleagues in the Senate as to. But for the State of Washington, we already said this plan wasn't acceptable science, and that reclassification was something we didn't think we should go along with, when DOE wasn't willing to give us a definition on how they were going to clean up the waste.
So this is very difficult because the tanks holding sludge and salt cake and hard heels--this would mean the waste in those tanks would not be penetrated to remove and segregate the radionuclides. The hazardous material would not be separated out and removed. It means those tanks would not be thoroughly mixed without the right level of product. Basically, what they found is that grout, as engineered, is not an option that protects human health and the environment for such a significant portion of tank waste, when we don't know the definition, because it is an indeterminate amount of tank waste.
As I said, even the last 8 percent of tank waste includes 50 percent of the radioactivity. How do you know, by using this grouting process, that you have successfully rendered this a nonhazardous substance? So grout as an in-tank treatment for significant waste volume will be, as I said, probably more expensive than other routes when we find out that it is not successful.
The best science says is don't hold States hostage by reclassifying waste and telling them we are not going to give them money for cleanup unless they agree to our definition. This definition is something that the Department of Energy thinks they can come up with on their own. But the courts have determined that DOE doesn't have that authority.
The courts have not sided in DOE's favor. The courts have not said don't go ahead with cleanup. They didn't say you cannot move forward on cleaning up the tanks. The courts said: DOE cannot move forward on its plan of reclassifying waste and saying that it is a grout process and that is going to work. It says you cannot move forward on that.
So back to the underlying bill and what happened in the Defense authorization bill. There was an amendment that would enable the Department of Energy to exempt an intermediate amount of highly radioactive waste from regulation as high-level radioactive waste.
I am reading from legal counsel's interpretation of this underlying provision in the DOD bill. This interpretation says the amendment would allow the Department of Energy to continue to store waste long thought destined for deep geologic repository in existing storage tanks or send them to waste isolation pile-up plants or low-level radioactive waste burial sites. It also would exempt the Department's handling of those wastes from the license and regulation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It will, in short, overturn the fundamental legal principles that have governed the disposal of these wastes for the past 30 years.
This legal briefing goes on to point out--which I think is very important--that for nearly half a century, when the DOE and its predecessors made plutonium for their nuclear weapons, they did so by irradiating uranium fuel, transforming it into plutonium, and reprocessing the spent fuel, as I showed in the picture with the reactor. And that became high-level radioactive waste. This is the term given to the plutonium spent fuel from the reactors was high-level waste.
So what did the Nuclear Waste Policy Act say? In 1981, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act said: Let's establish a comprehensive program for the disposal of this spent nuclear fuel, and put it in deep geologic repositories licensed by the Commission.
So let me be clear about this point, because I am sure we will hear about this in the debate. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was given the responsibility of the deep geological repository license procedure. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was not given the responsibility for these low-level tanks. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was not given the responsibility to interpret this change in the DOD bill as it relates to whether this is a cleanup plan and whether they can license it because that is not their responsibility. Their responsibility, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is on Yucca Mountain and the deep geological solution. That is what their responsibility is.
The act directed the President to decide whether high-level radioactive defense waste should be disposed of in the same repository as civilian waste, or in a separate repository. So in 1985, President Reagan decided this defense waste should be put in the same repository as civilian waste.
The 1982 act defines high-level radioactive waste. We had a decision by the President in 1985 that military waste should be treated as civilian waste, and that the civilian waste should be put in the same spot.
So that is the plan we have been on. Now, I have had some concerns about how much waste you are actually going to take out of Hanford because, I tell you what, I want more than 17 percent of the waste taken from Hanford to go to Yucca Mountain. I want it cleaned up and I want it in a permanent place.
I don't want grouting and I don't want to have plumes continuing to leak. But that was the decision made in 1985, and the President made that decision. They said, let's vitrify this waste, glassify it, take it out of the tanks, turn it into glass logs, and take that to a site for permanent storage, wherever that site is.
The plan, since 1985, has not been to pour cement and sand and create grout leaving some percentage, some indeterminate amount of waste in tanks.
I cannot emphasize how important it is if DOE believes in this philosophy, this science, if DOE thinks this is the successful course of discussion that should happen with spent nuclear fuel, then come to the broad daylight of a Senate hearing and make their case and put that before the appropriate Senate committees.
If they are so proud of their science and the standing of their decision, they should have no problem doing that. As Governor Kempthorne of Idaho said, when you don't end up achieving public consensus, you don't do anybody any favors.
The issue is the Department of Energy knows all too well, because these States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and South Carolina challenged the Department of Energy in court, that these States do not believe this order or plan for reclassifying waste is sound science. They do not believe it is sound science. That is why they challenged it in court.
I know the Department of Energy knows they cannot waltz into the Senate hearing rooms and make their case without hearing the critiques of the experts who have been dealing with this issue for years and years. And by ``the experts,'' I mean not only the scientists, but the people who have to live with the economic and health consequences of having a million gallons of nuclear waste leak into the ground and make its way to the Columbia River. Those people are paying attention, and they are paying attention to the fact that this science is not standing the test of daylight and scrutiny. If it were, they would be here debating it.
I am saying to them now, this Senator, and I am sure members of other committees, welcomes the opportunity to understand this technology, to understand this new process, to understand exactly how taking some level of spent fuel from these reactors in these underground tanks and somehow pouring a grouting material on them is going to make for a successful cleanup effort.
I am sure my colleagues would love to hear if it actually saves billions of dollars and can be safe and sound science. But if that is the case, then we should not be in a rush today. After the courts have already said DOE does not have the authority to change this policy without the approval of Congress, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, my colleagues should not be in a hurry to pass this legislation that basically says in a contradictory form: Go ahead, DOE Secretary, reclassify the waste because nuclear waste from spent fuel does not have to be classified as highly radioactive.
The definition of highly radioactive waste that is used in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was initially modeled after the definition found in the West Valley demonstration project. That is a commercial site in New York. I am again reading from the legal opinion Energy counsel has provided to us.
It basically said waste produced by reprocessing of spent fuel, that it included both liquid waste and that waste directly from reprocessing and dry solid material derived from that solid waste.
In addition, it gave the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the authority to include other waste in the definition of such material. Significantly, West Valley gave the Commission power to add material other than reprocessing waste to the definition, but not to exempt any part of the processing of waste.
We have had this debate, and I know the Department of Energy objected to the definition. I know they wanted the regulatory agencies to be able to exclude material from high-level radioactive waste. I know that is what they wanted. But Congress rewrote the definition, not as the Department asked, but, as enacted, the final definition provides, as I said earlier, high-level radioactive waste means material from reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, and that other radioactive material that the Commission, consistent with existing law, determines requires permanent isolation.
That is the process by which we, as the legislative branch, have gotten to the point of making decisions about this incredible product that was made by men and women throughout our country in the 1940s. It was a time of great military need, during World War II and the cold war. And they did their job, as the federal government had asked.
Now we are saying we are going to ignore the definitions and the process and not really have a hearing on the Nuclear Waste Policy Act or the fact that the DOE has already been turned down in the courts in its ability to reclassify that waste.
Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from Washington will allow me a moment.
Ms. CANTWELL. Does the Senator have a question?
Mr. ALLARD. Pardon?
Ms. CANTWELL. Does the Senator have a question?
Mr. ALLARD. I do not have a question. I wanted to know how much longer the Senator from Washington will take because we have Members in the Chamber who would like to speak. They have schedules and would like to get some feel of when their opportunity may come up to speak.
Ms. CANTWELL. Without yielding the floor.
Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Washington how much longer she anticipates taking to complete her remarks.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I have some more material on the history of the process. I see 2 of my colleagues in the Chamber who are also very concerned about this issue, but I imagine at least another half hour or so longer, maybe more.
Mr. ALLARD. I thank the Senator for that guidance.
Ms. CANTWELL. Does the Senator from Washington have a question?
Mr. ALLARD. I would hope we could go back and forth. I think that is the way the debate has been going. The next Senator I will call on is Senator Inhofe , and then whoever on your side.
Ms. CANTWELL. I obviously want my colleagues to join in the debate on this issue, but the reason this Senator feels so strongly about this process is because I do believe this measure does not belong on the Defense authorization bill. We have a very important piece of legislation that needs to move through the process, and yet we have an entity the courts have turned down, that believes that States have turned them down, that believes this is a controversial issue, and thinks they ought to sneak it in on a DOD bill and that is a way to do legislation. It is not the way to do legislation.
This is the only opportunity we have to expose the fact this legislation has been drafted this way and the unbelievable effect it has on so many people in this country when the Department of Energy can author legislation and give it to a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who then offers it in a mark-up in private and includes it in the legislation.
I am going to take a little more time to go over these facts because I think the bright light of day needs to shine on the fact the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 ought to have the attention of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and ought to have the attention of the Environment and Public Works Committee and not be proposed on the Defense authorization bill without the scrutiny of public debate and foresight that such a huge, significant change in policy would bring about.
This is why I am going to take as much time as necessary to explain this policy and to say to the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that while any member has the ability to offer any amendment they want, including in an authorizing bill, usually it is the other way around. We have authorizing on appropriations and issues of that nature that have caused----
Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Ms. CANTWELL. The Senator will yield for a question.
Mr. INHOFE. I remind the Senator from Washington, if she is concerned about the action that we had proposed with the Environment and Public Works Committee, I chair that committee and I am waiting to be heard concerning this issue because I also have a lot of interest in it. I appreciate the fact that the Senator is suggesting our jurisdiction should be heard, and that is what I am waiting to do.
Will the Senator agree with that?
Ms. CANTWELL. I thank the Senator for his question. The issue is that the Senate Armed Services Committee should never have voted and considered this legislation in a closed door session without those hearings. So I certainly want the Member to be heard but--I think I have the floor, Mr. President.
Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield the floor for a question?
Ms. CANTWELL. I think I have the floor, Mr. President, and I will yield in a moment for another question.
The issue is that we have been trying to work with the author of this legislation on a compromise that would promote a dialog and a hearing. My staff has been working diligently since the language came out of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
This morning we learned without warning, without notice, that perhaps now they did not want to continue discussion on that, they did not want to continue discussion on how we brought this issue to light.
I really did not want to spend the afternoon on the Senate floor. We had hoped we would actually propose a better process and procedure, but others want to move forward on changing the underlying bill, which in this amendment is still flawed. The proposed amendment by Senator Graham of South Carolina makes a bad situation slightly better but does not correct the underlying problem. And this Senator whose home state has one million gallons of nuclear waste flowing to the Columbia River--is going to be heard on the details of this proposal.
The fact that we have not had a full public hearing on a significant change in 30 years of policy and 50 years of science is something that, if it takes me 5 hours to explain, I will take it. I will take the 5 hours to explain to my colleague the significance of these changes.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator yield for a question?
Ms. CANTWELL. I will yield to the Senator for a question.
Mr. WARNER. I thank the Senator. May I most respectfully explain that under the Senate rules of allocation of committee responsibilities, this issue of the nuclear waste is directly within the purview of the Senate Armed Services Committee. We control, through oversight, 70 percent of the budget of the Department of Energy. The cost of nuclear waste cleanup comes before our committee. So I want to say to my distinguished colleague, while she may have concerns about the legislative process as a whole, there is no doubt about the jurisdiction of the Armed Services Committee over this subject.
We have put in our bill, which is now at the desk and the subject of debate, the specific provisions the Senator is addressing. Jurisdictionally we had the perfect right to incorporate in our bill such legislative language we deemed as a committee necessary for dealing with this question of this specific type of nuclear waste. I was not certain that the distinguished Senator was aware that clearly this is in the jurisdiction of this committee.
Ms. CANTWELL. I thank the Senator for his question, but under rule XXV, the Armed Services Committee has jurisdiction over national security aspects of nuclear energy, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee has jurisdiction over nonmilitary development of nuclear energy, and the EPW Committee has jurisdiction over the nonmilitary environmental regulation and control of nuclear energy.
Undoubtedly SASC has jurisdiction over the reprocessing that created the tanks to begin with because DOE was responsible for the national security, but I do not see how anyone could seriously argue how the waste, disposal, and cleanup of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is a part of the national security aspect of the Senate Armed Services Committee's jurisdiction.
While I am more than happy that the committee has used this authority to bring this issue up, I think the committee is doing an injustice to say to our colleagues that a change that is in contradiction to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act ought to be passed by the committee without hearing, without debate, without full scrutiny of public daylight. This provision would really contradict 30 years of law on the books when the agency promulgating that rule change lost a court battle basically telling it it does not have the authority to redefine high-level nuclear waste.
I fully respect, because of all the committees that I work with, I know that the chairman of the Armed Services Committee always strives to be fair and balanced at his hearings. And there are difficult challenges that we have had over many sensitive subjects in the last several weeks. The chairman has gone way out of his way to make sure the continuity of that committee works well and that the rules and processes are followed. But I say to the chairman that if the Department of Energy is so sure about these statutory changes they are promulgating through his committee without debate, then they ought to be willing to have the hearings and have the debates with the other committees that have jurisdiction for the cleanup, not the national security efforts the Senator was responsible for as the chairman of that committee.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I could reply, without the Senator losing her right to the floor, I will shortly bring the President's budget request for funds. I will bring appropriations acts and I will show the Senator the direct linkage of the request for funds coming to the Armed Services Committee, the Armed Services Committee bill going to the Appropriations Committee, and action by the Appropriations Committee on the authorizations of expenditure of the funds for nuclear waste and cleanup. It is irrefutable, and I will take a little time to go out and get the documentation. Then I will ask unanimous consent to print that documentation in the RECORD .
I thank the Senator.
Ms. CANTWELL. I thank the chairman again for his statement. I point out to him that the difference between authorizing for appropriations and oversight of policy, and what I am debating is that the committee's oversight over nuclear waste cleanup policy as set out in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. When that was passed in 1982 and moved through the legislative branch and made its way through the debates, it was debated in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and EPW Committee. As the parliamentarian referred to those committees, I am sure that the SASC, because of its nature of the appropriated funds, has some responsibilities. But I do not think that the SASC is the committee of jurisdiction for changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. I do not think that is the primary responsibility of that committee.
So, I don't know. I say to the Senator, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I have a great deal of respect for his willingness at all times in the most difficult of situations to try to have consideration of issues be as fair and balanced as possible, and to give Members their opportunity. I am happy to continue to discuss with him the nuances of this particular issue. But I have a feeling that if we had this Nuclear Waste Policy Act before us today and we asked the Parliamentarian--this change that is in your bill, under a separate act, under a separate stand-alone bill--it would not be referred to that committee. It would be referred jointly to those other committees and maybe to SASC in the authorizing of an appropriation, but not for the policy change.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I will reply later today with the documents in hand.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I think there are several other people here.
Mr. REID. Will the Senator respond to a question from the Senator?
Ms. CANTWELL. Without losing my right to the floor.
Mr. REID. Yes. I say to my friend from Washington, having spoken with her, it is my understanding the Senator has said publicly that if we came back after the break, the Senator would be willing to look very closely at the amendment pending and would be willing to offer one of her own, that she would agree to a time certain on that amendment. Is that true?
Ms. CANTWELL. I simply want the issue to have the appropriate amount of debate and dialog. All of us will have the opportunity to vote up or down on any of the amendments anybody wants to offer to this section. But the question before us was, all of a sudden at 11:30 today, without notice, when we had been in negotiations on this language, to bring it to the floor, this Senator feels obligated to make sure this time period is used to bring committee members and colleagues up to speed about the contents of the underlying bill.
Mr. REID. Does the Senator yield for another question?
Ms. CANTWELL. Yes.
Mr. REID. It is my further understanding the Senator, who has spoken for some time now, has a lot more to say, is that right, on this amendment, on this date? She has only gotten warmed up; is that right?
Ms. CANTWELL. That is correct.
Mr. REID. And you, as a matter of courtesy, will allow Senators HOLLINGS and MURRAY and anyone on the majority side to speak and you will be back at a later time for another round or two; is that correct?
Ms. CANTWELL. That is correct. I will give my colleagues from Washington and South Carolina an opportunity to join in this debate and participate because I think it is very important that this issue receive the full attention of Members. As I said at the beginning of this discussion, I do not believe this is an issue--even though a lot of my colleagues would like to classify it as an issue that only affects Washington State, South Carolina, or Idaho perhaps with some impact on Oregon and maybe Georgia, or New York in its commercial facility. I have never thought of this nuclear waste issue as a geographic-specific debate.
Our responsibility as a body is to make sure nuclear waste cleanup happens in a process that the science determines will not be with harm to humans or to the environment. We now have a proposal before us that science says will be harmful, that is not based on sound science, that has not met the test, nor has our approval.
While I am willing to have this debate, I hope my colleagues will use this debate as an opportunity to understand our challenge on nuclear waste cleanup and the tremendous amount of resources that are spent by our Government on that cleanup and the efficiencies that need to happen to make that process go more smoothly than it has in the past.
But I can guarantee to my colleagues that wanting that process to go more smoothly in the future, and wanting it to be more cost effective, does not simply mean coming up with a short-term proposal, a fix that is counter to what existing statute and law is. If we want to have that debate, let's go through the normal committees and have that debate, and let's have the scientists come in and discuss it with us, and let's not end up with a process where we are going to be battling in the courts. I don't think that does any of us any good. Certainly, for us in the State of Washington, with a 1-million-gallon plume heading toward the Columbia River, it doesn't do us any good.
I hope my colleagues will use this opportunity to focus attention not just on the question at hand, of high-level radioactive waste, but I would say the consistency by which the States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, South Carolina, and others have banded together in the last year or two in authorizing and appropriations language that has done a good job to make sure the processing of radioactive waste is completed.
I remind my colleagues, this is the first time I think the Department of Energy has successfully picked off a State. At first the underlying language was actually blackmail: We are going to make this change and nuclear waste is going to be reclassified, and if you are going to agree with us, we will give you some money, and if you don't agree with us, we are not cleaning up your waste. That is blackmail. That is what the current language in the DOD authorizing bill is. It is blackmail.
Now, after my colleagues have seen what ludicrous language that is, Senator Graham wants to offer an amendment that will not tie up the funds. But we still remain with the underlying problem, which is the Department of Energy is trying to reclassify highly radioactive waste as low-level ancillary waste and say it can be grouted, that is that cement and sand can be poured on it and somehow, leaving incidental amount of tank waste is a sufficient way to clean up tanks.
I will continue to fight on this issue until Members understand the significant policy change that is before this body.
I ask unanimous consent after the remarks of Senator Inhofe that Senators Murray , Allard , and Hollings be recognized, and that I immediately be recognized after them.
Mr. REID. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The Senator from Washington has the floor.
Ms. CANTWELL. I want to accommodate the Senator from Nevada. I was proposing to accommodate and trade off recognition of the four Members who are present on the floor?
Does the Senator have a question?
Mr. REID. When the Senator yields the floor, I will speak.
Ms. CANTWELL. The Senator from Nevada--I am happy to yield the floor to the Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Pardon me?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator yielding the floor?
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
Ms. CANTWELL. Does the Senator from Nevada have a question?
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I yield to the Chair. I have a question on that statement. The Senator from Washington has a right to speak, but we are not going to set a long list of speakers here at random, what speakers are going to speak. I think what we are going to do, we have a number of speakers on the floor, Senators Inhofe , Hollings , Allard , Murray --people who have been here for a long period of time.
It appears to me we are not going to have a vote on this in the near future. I suggest what we do is enter into agreement for the next several however long it takes. We have people who want to speak. We can go forward and whoever gets the jump ball, have people be recognized whenever they get the floor.
Senator Hollings has said Senator Inhofe has been here longer than he has. Senator Inhofe could be recognized for whatever time he feels appropriate. I would like to get some idea of what the time should be. Then, Senator Hollings , I think that would be the best way to go.
But in the meantime, it must be under some agreement, whoever gets the floor.
Mr. ALLARD. Will the Senator from Nevada yield?
Mr. REID. I am happy to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington has the floor.
Ms. CANTWELL. The Senator from Washington is happy to entertain a question that would allow the various Members who are here----
Mr. REID. The Senator from Washington has to understand--she has the floor, and if she wants to keep talking, let her keep talking. When she finishes, we will be happy to----
Mr. ALLARD. If the Senator from Washington will yield, I would like to pose a plan of how we can go through this. I suggest that maybe we can sit down with leadership and work out some time for debate. I know Senator Graham on this side of the Senate floor would like to wrap up this debate. Maybe we can get some time limits to give everybody an opportunity to speak. I know there is some interest in having some votes tonight. I believe I need to work with leadership on this side, if Senator Reid will work with leadership on his side, to determine if we can work this out. The Senator from Washington can finish, and I can call on the Senator from Oklahoma. Maybe we can sit down and work out a time agreement.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield----
Mr. ALLARD. I yield.
Mr. REID. The Senator from Washington has the floor.
Let me say this: Everyone should understand that there is not going to be a vote on this amendment tonight. Everyone should understand that. There is going to be no vote on the pending amendment tonight. I told people that 5 hours ago. No one believed me. There is not going to be a vote on the Graham amendment tonight.
Mr. ALLARD. Nobody is calling for a vote on this amendment tonight, but there might be other votes.
Mr. REID. We will not agree to set this one side. If the Senator from South Carolina wishes to withdraw his amendment and set some orderly procedure to take it up when we get back after the Memorial Day break, we are in agreement. But we are not going to agree to set this aside to go to another amendment.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, this Senator is happy to yield the floor to my colleague to discuss this issue. I want to make it clear that after 30 years of standard policy, they are not willing to just have a few hours of debate and then vote on this significant a change. The underlying Graham amendment does not fix the underlying DOD committee-passed authorization language that allows the Department of Energy to reclassify waste.
That is the key issue at hand. We do not want to leave this bill with this reclassification of highly radioactive waste to an amendment on spent fuel storage tanks to then be grouted over. We need to have the attention of this body, my colleagues who are members of the various committees I mentioned and my colleagues from those States directly affected, although I said it is a policy everybody should be discussing, and the public needs to have an idea and an opportunity to understand that this is a major policy proposal which is being proposed in this underlying bill.
I would have preferred that the Graham amendment not be brought up today, not to this particular issue of the DOD bill being discussed. We are still talking. We hoped we might able to work something out and save our colleagues the time and attention of studying a nuclear waste policy proposal and what level of radioactivity could be sufficiently removed from tanks and what couldn't be. But if my colleagues want to continue to pursue the subject, we are going to continue to pursue and discuss this issue.
With that, I know various Members of both sides of the aisle are waiting, and I will have more to say on this subject as we continue to debate the DOD authorizing bill and continue to debate whether the Graham amendment is sufficient in disposing of the problem that has now been created in the underlying bill in overriding 30 years of law and science about how this country should clean up nuclear waste. I don't believe anybody in America wants to do it on the cheap. We need to give the American public the certainty that this body will not propose major policy changes without hearings, without debate, without committees of jurisdiction having oversight of this policy proposal that is in the Defense authorization bill.
I yield the floor.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I take a few minutes to clarify points from the debate we had prior to moving off the DOE bill and the specifics of the Graham amendment.
I know my colleague, the Senator from South Carolina, is probably somewhere still in the vicinity of the Senate. I, too, admire the Senator from South Carolina on a variety of issues, particularly on National Guard issues and some of the challenges we have had, both coming from States that have been hard hit economically and challenged with a large number of people participating in our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. This issue that he and I disagree on obviously is one of utmost importance and certainly one that needs a lot of attention by the Members of this body. We will get that time and attention when we return to DOE after the recess.
I bring up a couple of points made that are the crux of my concern about this legislation; that is, that section 3116 of the underlying bill, the Defense authorization bill, attempts to reclassify high-level nuclear waste into a low-level material and allow it to be disposed of in a different way.
I object to that and I object to the process by which that legislation was drafted. The Senate Armed Services Committee does not have jurisdiction over the ability to reclassify waste. That is a change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act drafted in 1982. If the Department of Energy wants to have that debate, then the Department of Energy should come down here and have hearings before the appropriate committees and discuss that issue. But to have such a major policy change of 30 years' policy since 1982 and 50 years of science saying this is what high-level nuclear waste is and one day changing it in the DOD bill is beyond absurd. Obviously, that is why we have spent time this afternoon talking about it.
The chairman of the committee asked me in a question whether that committee has jurisdiction over the issue. I know that DOE many times has tried with various environmental issues to have them go through the Senate Armed Services Committee, environmental issues such as the Resource Conservation Recovery Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, the Endangered Species Act. All of those, even though they are DOE issues, do not go through the Senate Armed Services Committee. In fact, the committee even said they are not part of our issues. Those are environmental policies or policies for other committees and referred to those specific committees.
I read to my colleagues rule XXV earlier regarding what the jurisdiction of the Senate Armed Services Committee is. It is specific to the national interests that were necessary in creating nuclear fuel. That was an offshoot of the reactors used in the development of plutonium for our efforts in World War II and the cold war, but they do not have the legislative oversight of the cleanup policy. That is the prerogative of other committees, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee.
To make my point, I took section 3116 of this bill, this section that reclassifies waste, and introduced it today as my own legislation and asked for a referral. If we took this section on reclassification now as a stand-alone bill, let's see where it was referred to. That bill, Senate bill 2457, by Senator Cantwell , was referred to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. That proves my point, that this policy change is not the jurisdiction of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Senate Armed Services Committee should not try, in a closed-door session, in secrecy without having a public hearing, without having a public debate, to change policy of this significant nature which is not the jurisdiction of their committee.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD a letter from the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that was also sent to the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman and ranking member asking them not to pass this legislation out of committee, and that it was the jurisdiction of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY
AND NATURAL RESOURCES,
Washington, DC, May 5, 2004. Hon. John W. Warner, Chairman, Hon. Carl Levin, Ranking Democratic Member, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC
Dear Senator Warner and Senator Levin: I am writing to urge you not to include language relating to the reclassification of high-level radioactive defense wastes proposed by Senator Graham of South Carolina in the defense authorization bill.
For thirty years, it has been the policy of this nation that the high-level radioactive defense wastes temporarily stored in tanks at Savannah River and elsewhere would, in time, be removed from those tanks and permanently disposed of in new facilities licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Enactment of Senator Graham's amendment would abandon that policy and permit the Department of Energy, in its discretion, to reclassify an unknown part of the tank wastes as transuranic or low-level waste and either leave it where it is or ship it to New Mexico for disposal in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant as transuranic waste, or to some other state for shallow land burial as low-level waste.
In addition, Senator Graham's amendment would exempt the Department's handling of these wastes from licensing and regulation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Its enactment would have profound consequences for the nation's high-level nuclear waste policy, which is under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. It would also interfere in litigation now pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
For all of these reasons, I urge you not to include Senator Graham's amendment in the defense authorization bill.
Sincerely, Jeff Bingaman.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I am trying to make the point that the ranking member of the committee, and now the parliamentarian, have agreed that this is not the jurisdiction of this committee.
I ask my colleagues to weigh that in the time we have away from here, to drop this policy as it relates to trying to reclassify waste without having the proper public hearing and public comment about the issues.
Yes, everyone has heard of DOE attempts to try to reclassify this waste. It is well known that they actually tried to do it by order themselves and were shot down in court. They were shot down in court because specifically they do not have the authority. They have to change the definition under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. If they want to do that, debate it on the Hill, have this discussion, and move forward.
I make a point that cleanup around America--whether it is in South Carolina, in the Savannah River, or whether it is Washington State at the Hanford reservation, whether it is Idaho or any other facility in this country--should be continuing. There is nothing about any court case or any court battle that prohibits the Department of Energy from continuing with cleanup. I hope they understand that is the judgment and the clarification of the court that ruled.
If my colleague from South Carolina is hearing that nuclear waste cleanup may be going slow or may be put on hold in the future, that is the absolute wrong message from the Department of Energy. Congress has appropriated funds, has appropriated funds in the past, and they should be going about their cleanup job.
What we are not going to do as a body is whitewash a change of significant nature where we do not have science backing that says we ought to reclassify this waste. In fact, science has been very specific in saying this is not a simple proposition.
In 1990, the National Academy of Science said:
There is strong worldwide consensus that the best, and safest, long-term option for dealing with HLW is geologic isolation.
Again, not grouting waste in existing tanks but removing the waste and putting it in a geological isolation, as we have suggested, and others have suggested, at Yucca Mountain.
A 1992 report by the Pacific Northwest Laboratory said:
The grouts will remain at elevated temperatures for many years. The high temperatures expected during the first few decades after disposal will increase the driving force for water vapor transport away from the grouts; the loss of water may result in cracking .....
A 1992 study on this issue regarding just pouring cement and sand on nuclear waste and somehow storing it and solidifying it in the ground said there would be a result of cracking.
What we know in Washington State is we already had the cracking of the tanks. We already had a plume of nuclear waste going toward the river. So we already know what this situation is all about.
In 2000, the National Academy of Sciences said:
[W]aste tank residue is likely to be highly radioactive and not taken up in the grout, so there is substantial uncertainty. .....
Another 2000 study by the National Academy of Sciences says:
[Using grout,] the ability of the site to reliably meet long-term safety performance objectives remains uncertain.
I think there is much science that basically says we do not think grout can work. Obviously, we do not know what the Department of Energy is trying to do, because they want to leave an unspecified amount of waste in the ground and not be specific about that. So it is very difficult for us to see.
I would also like in my short time here, because I know each Member is limited in time this evening, to refute the letter that was submitted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. While we do not know what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was asked to comment on, what they ended up commenting on was not the underlying language in the DOD authorizing bill. They did not comment on the fact that the Graham language would significantly change the Nuclear Waste Power Act and classify high-level waste as something else.
What they did comment on was the fact that you could take the entire tanks out of the ground and it would be very expensive, which I do not know if people can imagine, because the Hanford site is miles and miles of acres--I think earlier we said something close to one-third the size of the State of Rhode Island. That is how big the Hanford reservation is--580 miles of land. These tanks that have stored the spent fuel are enormous.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is saying: We do not know if it is feasible to take out the tanks entirely. Well, no one ever said we expected to take out the entire tanks. What we said was we think the tanks have to be cleaned and the site has to be cleaned. And that is the removal process we should continue to do.
So I think while we would be wise to get a letter from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that was specific about the exact proposal that is in this bill and get their response, the issue is they are not in charge of short-term waste disposal. They are in charge of this geological isolation solution we in Congress and others have been looking for, and basically asking questions about, and saying, Where are you going to take the vitrified waste and put it? They are not the regulatory entity over those short-term issues.
I think the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not fully addressed the question. I think perhaps we should send them a more direct question to which we can get a more specific answer.
We will hear a lot more about this issue when we return from the legislative recess. But I assure my colleagues, we are going to continue to talk about the fact that we in Congress cannot have this significant a change in a policy by simply sneaking language into a Senate Armed Services Committee bill that does not have jurisdiction over this issue and make a major policy change that is 30 years of law--30 years of established law--and 50 years of scientific evidence and override that in a short period of time without a full discussion and debate.
This underlying bill language needs to be stricken. We need to get about the nuclear waste cleanup that the science says we should do; that is, removing the high-level waste and not simply trying to do cleanup on the quick by calling it grout.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
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