The Nuclear Information and Resource Service today called on Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott to withdraw further consideration of S. 1936, a bill that would put an “interim” storage dump for high-level radioactive waste in Nevada.
Citing a July 15, 1996 letter in which the Administration reaffirmed President Clinton’s intent to veto S. 1936, and a July 16 procedural Senate floor vote in which opponents of the measure received the necessary 34 votes to sustain a veto, NIRS said it is time for Lott “to withdraw this bill for the rest of the session.”
Senators Reid and Bryan of Nevada have been leading a filibuster against S. 1936. The Senate voted July 16 65-34 in favor of invoking “cloture” on a motion to proceed with S. 1936. Another “cloture” vote to end a filibuster is expected next week. NIRS pointed out that several Senators who voted for cloture, which merely allows consideration of the bill to proceed, are likely to support a Presidential veto. “The margin voting to sustain a veto may be quite a bit larger than yesterday’s vote indicates,” Michael Mariotte, NIRS’ Executive Director, wrote in a July 17, 1996 letter to Lott.
The letter continued, “Meanwhile, continuing with this unnecessary and dangerous legislation will continue to delay Senate consideration of other important policy matters and appropriations bills. The gridlock you criticized last week likely will continue. Now, however, it is clear that it is the supporters of S. 1936 who are causing the gridlock, by continuing to pursue a bill which surely cannot be enacted.”
In releasing the letter, Mariotte said, “Senator Lott and the nuclear power industry will be at fault for any further Senate gridlock, for bringing up a bill which President Clinton has said, in writing, that he will veto. This is not a partisan issue, it’s a common sense issue. Common sense says you don’t move high-level radioactive waste across dangerous railways and highways unless you have to. Common sense says you certainly don’t move it unless you know !QW! it’s going to end up permanently, and unless the utilities which generated it are liable for any accidents. This bill defies common sense in order to give nuclear utilities an election-year financial break.”
Added Mary Olson of NIRS’ Radioactive Waste Project, “We commend Senators Reid and Bryan, and President Clinton, for their efforts to ensure that this bill is never enacted. They are protecting the American people from dangerous nuclear waste transport, pure and simple. 50 million Americans live within two miles of transport routes, in 43 states, on which lethal high-level radioactive waste would be shipped under S. 1936. Without the Reid/Bryan filibuster and the Presidential veto promise, Americans would soon see huge radioactive waste transport casks–each carrying as much as 200 Hiroshima bombs worth of long-lived radiation–traveling through their neighborhoods. This is absolutely unacceptable and unconscionable, especially when the waste would be moved to an uncertain future: to an “interim” dump on a geological fault line.”
The text of NIRS’ July 17 letter to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and the Administration’s July 15 veto promise are available on request, and from NIRS’ website: www.nirs.org