Political Quotes

“it is often useful to compare the public statements of Government officials with their private statements. Such a comparison can say a great deal about an official's true motives, not to mention their character. Last week, in response to a question I posed for the public record, the Department of the Interior provided me with a copy of a memo written by Deputy Secretary of the Interior John Garamendi to his boss, Secretary Bruce Babbitt. This memorandum was dated February 21, 1996, and it concerns the Ward Valley low-level waste disposal issue. For those who do not know, Ward Valley is the site of a low-level radioactive waste facility licensed by the State of California under the Federal Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act. The site sits on the Bureau of Land Management land in a remote and sparsely populated area of the Mojave Desert. But the Department of the Interior reversed an earlier decision to sell the land to California, and has insisted on study after study to achieve endless delays. Meanwhile, low-level radioactive waste is piling up at hundreds of urban locations all across California. It is stored in basements, stored in parking lots, stored in trailers, stored in warehouses, and temporary shelters. It is on college campuses, it is in residential neighborhoods, it is in hospitals--sites that were not designed for permanent storage.…”