Political Quotes

“let me point out a couple of facts that perhaps some Members have not reflected upon. There are no proposed routes. There are only potential routes. While the Senator from California points out routes around Sacramento or Los Angeles, they have simply taken every major route that has the potential of moving nuclear waste and said this is, in fact, a proposed route. That is hardly accurate. It is fair to say there is no Yucca transportation route yet. What opponents have done is they have selected every major highway in the U.S. and simply called it ``proposed.'' That is certainly stretching things to suggest it is going to go by hospitals, it is going to go by schools. Clearly, there are efforts being made by the responsible agencies. If we create these agencies, we have the oversight. If we do not have the faith in them to do their job--the Department of Transportation, the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission--are we to micromanage, if you will, when waste has been moving safely across this country for decades, and to suggest that somehow we cannot move it safely? California is 17-percent dependent on nuclear energy. I am looking at a spreadsheet. Cumulative spent fuel, in California, at the end of the year 2000, was 1,954 metric tons, not including 98 metric tons from the San Onofre Nuclear Reactor. There are 403 metric tons at shutdown reactors, 11 metric tons in dry storage.”