Sam Gibbons: “think about what $2.3 billion would buy today. If the American people knew what Congress was planning to do with this…”

“think about what $2.3 billion would buy today. If the American people knew what Congress was planning to do with this large sum of money, they would be appalled. Does anyone here honestly think the American people would choose to spend this money to transport nuclear waste through their States, their communities, their towns and their backyards? I do not think so. Yet this is exactly what H.R. 1270, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997 will do. Today, schools need more teachers, communities need more police, veterans need a cost-of-living adjustment, and the hard-working men and women of this country need a tax break. Why then, Mr. Speaker, do some in this body contend that the $2.3 billion should be used to subsidize nuclear powerplants? It is an unfair, unfunded mandate. H.R. 1270 seeks to create an interim storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, to temporarily store nuclear waste. Why endanger Americans when it is infinitely safer and seven times cheaper to keep this waste on site?”