Eighty-three national, regional and local organizations today expressed “dismay and outrage” that Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole has scheduled a vote on S. 1271, dubbed the “Mobile Chernobyl Act,” to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the world’s worst environmental disaster. A letter from the groups, which represent millions of Americans, was hand-delivered to Dole today, along with about 30,000 petition signatures to Dole saying “Don’t Waste America.”
According to the Senate calendar, Dole, who schedules Senate floor votes, has slated S. 1271 for a vote on April 25 or 26. The Chernobyl nuclear accident occurred April 26, 1986.
“On April 26, people across the world will be mourning the Chernobyl accident, the tens of thousands who already have died, and the millions who still live on contaminated land and eat contaminated food,” said Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), which is coordinating a national relief effort for Chernobyl victims. “We cannot imagine a more inappropriate time for a vote on a bill which brings the threat of a Chernobyl-style accident to 43 states, countless cities and towns, and our nation’s agricultural heartland. More than 50 million Americans live within one mile of the likely transport routes. Surely, if Bob Dole has any compassion, he will reschedule this vote; better yet, he will ensure this unconscionable bill never reaches the Senate floor.”
S. 1271 would establish an “interim” storage site for high-level radioactive waste near Yucca Mountain, Nevada, which is currently undergoing characterization to determine its suitability as a permanent radioactive waste dump. According to Department of Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary, the site has only a 50-50 chance of ever receiving a license to become a nuclear waste repository.
If S. 1271 is enacted, transportation of this high-level nuclear waste–which contains 95% of all the radioactivity ever created in the United States–would begin as early as 1998. The bill is supported by nuclear utilities because, once the waste leaves their property, title to and liability for the waste would revert to taxpayers instead of the utilities which generated it.
“Nuclear utilities are the biggest NIMBYs (not in my back yard) of all,” said Mary Olson of NIRS’ Radioactive Waste Project. “Rather than address the problem they created, or find acceptable storage methods for their lethal garbage, they want to make all Americans liable for their mistakes.”
Under the bill, radioactive waste would be transported in huge casks, called “multi-purpose canisters.” These casks would travel predominately by rail, but also on highways, to Nevada, !QW! they would be placed in a parking lot setting awaiting further disposition, perhaps for decades. The largest of the casks, which would travel by rail, would contain some 200 Hiroshima bombs worth of long-lived radiation. In the past two months, there have been several notable train accidents–five of which have occurred on likely rail transportation routes. An accident in Silver Spring, Maryland, for example, just outside the nation’s capitol, reflected a scenario for a major radiation release: a head-on collision involving substantial fire. That track is a likely radioactive waste transport route.
The bill would also open the door for reprocessing of nuclear waste, which poses severe environmental and proliferation threats.
Senator Richard Bryan (D-Nev.) intends to lead a filibuster against the bill should it reach the Senate floor. President Clinton has said he will veto the bill in its current form.
A public opinion poll conducted in December 1995 found that 70% of the American people prefer the major alternative: establishing an independent commission to re-evaluate our nation’s radioactive waste policies before moving any nuclear waste. Only 26% favored the immediate transport of waste required by S. 1271.
Though he has scheduled a vote, Senator Dole has not publicly expressed an opinion on merits of the bill. Similar legislation in the House, HR 1020, has some 200 co-sponsors, but has stalled due to concerns by some House members over that bill’s deficit-increasing provisions. Negotiations are reportedly underway behind-the-scenes to address the bill’s budgetary problems.
The Senate Energy Committee approved S. 1271 March 13 by a 12-6 vote, with two abstentions. All committee Democrats, except Howell Heflin (Ala.), either voted against the bill or abstained. The House Commerce Committee approved HR 1020 last summer by a 30-4 vote. The bills are the nuclear power industry’s major legislative goal this Congress and, the industry believes, are a prerequisite to the construction of new nuclear reactors in the U.S.
“The “Mobile Chernobyl Act” is a last-ditch effort by a desperate, failed industry to transfer its financial burden from nuclear utilities to taxpaying citizens,” said Mariotte. “The bill is an insult to the American people and, by scheduling its vote on Chernobyl day, Senator Dole has managed to offend all the world’s citizens who are taking this time to remember their loved ones and to reflect upon the dangers of a nuclear technology gone amok.”
According to an article by Yuri Scherhbak, an epidemiologist and Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, in the April 1996 Scientific American, some 30,000 people already have died as a result of Chernobyl, and millions of lives have been disrupted permanently.