Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) for his leadership on this issue. For so long we have been trying to get a solution and to get proper use made out of Yucca Mountain and the billions of dollars that ratepayers all across the Nation have spent.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the bipartisan amendment as well that is brought forward by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Keating) to bring more light to show the ratepayers of the country what is exactly happening with this Nuclear Waste Fund.

But the underlying bill is critical to our national energy strategy because, for decades, going back to the 1980s, this country, through Congress, established that there will be a national nuclear waste storage facility, and yet it has gone unused. The money has gone unutilized, and there is no facility right now that is working.

We have got to make this work for the ratepayers all across the country who pay billions of dollars into this fund. We need a national repository for spent nuclear fuel. This bill finally achieves that.

I congratulate my friend, Mr. Shimkus, for spending years finally getting us to a point where we can move this bill across the House floor, and hopefully the Senate moves this bill to the President's desk so we can finally resolve this long-lasting issue that ratepayers all across the Nation deserve to have an answer to.

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