Sam Gibbons: “just two days ago this chamber approved, unfortunately, $352 million for the continued development of a nuclear waste…”

“just two days ago this chamber approved, unfortunately, $352 million for the continued development of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, just north of Las Vegas, Nevada. On that very same day, a public hearing on that project was held in Las Vegas, and at this hearing numerous experts testified that the Department of Energy's draft impact report ignored completely the basic principles of sound science. And, just to make matters worse, the Energy Department's impact report failed to follow the law requiring them to consider alternatives to Yucca Mountain for storing high level nuclear waste. And, by the way, it did not consider the dangers of transporting the high level nuclear waste across America to Yucca Mountain. But these issues, by necessity, deal with sound science. Obviously the Energy Department is not interested in sound science. It does not take a scientist, Mr. Speaker, to know that funding a nuclear waste storage project which lacks a sound scientific rational is not only wasteful, but dangerous. I yield back the trace of all nuclear waste across this country and the green garbage it leaves behind.”