Sam Gibbons: “Diesel fuel burns at 1,830 degrees, but in addition to that, if cooked long enough, the metal surrounding structures…”

“Diesel fuel burns at 1,830 degrees, but in addition to that, if cooked long enough, the metal surrounding structures will burn in excess of 3,000 degrees, sometimes. So the problem we have here is twofold. We have natural hazards, diesel fuel from trains and trucks and the metal surrounding it, the incendiary position of the metal; as well as the explosives, if the accident had occurred with a trainload of nuclear fuel and this truck, loaded with explosives; or a terrorist act. Not too long ago in Arizona it was reported that a terrorist blew a bridge out in Arizona and a train derailed. The exposure of hazard to this material in transportation across America exposes a great risk. But it is a fact that these casks are dangerous. I would tell the Members, Mr. Speaker, just what is in one of these casks. That is the critical part. These concrete and steel casks contain 24 nuclear fuel rods, spent nuclear fuel rods. Each one of these casks contains 10 times the nuclear radioactive fallout as the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima in the Second World War. That is 10 times that in one cask, in one cask; and we have nearly 80,000 tons of this material being transported primarily from the East Coast over to the West.”