William Bryan: “Yesterday, in perhaps the most antienvironmental vote of the Congress, the House of Representatives passed the Nuclear…”

“Yesterday, in perhaps the most antienvironmental vote of the Congress, the House of Representatives passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997. Like the Senate bill that passed earlier this year, the House bill unfairly targets Nevada, a State with no nuclear reactors, as the final destination for 80,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste produced by the U.S. commercial nuclear utilities, most of which are located in the East. The central feature of the bill passed by the House yesterday, like the Senate bill, is the establishment of so-called interim storage of high-level commercial nuclear waste at the Nevada test site, about 80 miles north of the metropolitan Las Vegas area, an area that comprises some 1 million citizens. Like its Senate counterpart, the House bill tramples on decades of environmental policy, ignores public health and safety and exposes the American taxpayer to billions of dollars in cost to solve the private industry's waste problem. Fortunately, the President has indicated that he will veto either version of this misguided legislation. We have secured the votes in the Senate to sustain President Clinton's veto. While yesterday's House vote falls slightly short of the number required to sustain a veto in the House, we are still within striking distance of the required number, and I believe that in the end this bill has little or no chance of becoming law.”