Tony Thurmond: “I rise to ask for passage of the Thurmond-Hollings amendment to the pending Nuclear Waste Policy Act bill. The pending…”

“I rise to ask for passage of the Thurmond-Hollings amendment to the pending Nuclear Waste Policy Act bill. The pending bill includes a prohibition against storing commercial spent nuclear fuel at the Hanford site in Washington State. This amendment would include an exemption for the Savannah River site and an adjoining site in Barnwell County, SC. Mr. President, the purpose of the amendment is to level the playing field among all states, should the Department of Energy have to select an alternate interim storage site. There are three sites under the jurisdiction of the Department of Energy which currently have facilities that might be capable of accepting spent nuclear fuel. They are the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington, the Idaho National Environmental and Engineering Laboratory in Idaho, and the Savannah River site in South Carolina. Let me note that these facilities are near their capacity and would require many significant upgrades to take on a commercial mission. The pending bill explicitly exempts the Hanford site from being selected for interim storage. The State of Idaho has a legally enforceable court order prohibiting importation of new wastes into the State. This leaves South Carolina as the only other State with facilities capable of accepting spent nuclear fuel. Passage of the amendment is not intended to impact the overall success or failure of this legislation.”