Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. TITUS. Mr. Chairman, the legislation before us directs $150 million to be spent on ``activities related to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.'' For my constituents in southern Nevada, we know that that is code for ``build the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.''

After decades of losing time and over $15 billion having been squandered on this boondoggle, the current administration has rightly said it is time for a new strategy.

Our colleagues in the Senate understand this need to turn the page, which is why Senators WYDEN and MURKOWSKI introduced bipartisan legislation that creates a new system for the disposal of the Nation's nuclear waste.

Unfortunately, some in this body still believe that we should force nuclear waste that has been created in their districts on a region that does not have a single nuclear power plant.

What started decades ago as a law authorizing the study and the selection of two geological depositories suitable for the permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel has now transformed into politics at its worst.

With the passage of the ``screw Nevada'' bill in 1987, which designated Yucca Mountain as the sole repository for the Nation's nuclear waste prior to the completion of adequate scientific evaluation, the goal shifted from how to find the best site for storage to how to force Nevada to take all of this waste--science and common sense be damned.

As the years passed, billions of dollars were wasted, and the misguided Yucca project changed from being a geologic depository to a manmade structure, with barriers erected to attempt to mitigate the tectonic fault lines that run directly under the mountain, threatening the geohydrology of the area with leaking radioactive waste.

The original plan was ill-conceived, and studies conducted over the past few decades clearly illustrate the dangers and costs associated with the project. Unfortunately, you can add the passage of legislation to institute a new national nuclear waste policy to the growing list of issues this Congress has now failed to address.

In the absence of coherent policy, I offer this amendment today to use the funding appropriated for carrying out the failed Yucca Mountain plan to reduce our deficit.

Instead of wasting tens of millions of dollars more on an unworkable solution, let's instead meet our fiduciary obligations to future generations. At the same time, let us commit to moving forward with a new policy to address the Nation's nuclear waste, one that relies on a consent-based system, so that it doesn't force waste on communities like mine.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and send a clear message that this Congress will not continue to go backwards, but that it will take serious action to address our Nation's nuclear waste policy.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. TITUS. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's concern for the State of Nevada and its economy, and I invite him to come back again and spend some of his money there.

I also appreciate his argument that this is the law of the land. Indeed, the Affordable Care Act is also the law of the land, but that hasn't stopped the other side from trying, over 50 times, to change it.

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