William Bryan: “in what has become one of the more unpleasant annual rituals here in the Senate, the majority leader has once again put…”

“in what has become one of the more unpleasant annual rituals here in the Senate, the majority leader has once again put the Senate on notice that we may soon consider legislation related to the disposal of high-level nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. Since the Senate last considered this subject, the sponsors of this legislation have realized that the Senators from Nevada, and the Clinton administration, will never yield to the outrageous and dangerous--in my view very dangerous--demands of the nuclear power industry. This year, it appears that the industry and its advocates here in the Senate have finally conceded defeat, and dropped their misguided attempts to require ``interim'' storage of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada. We have been fighting the ``interim'' storage proposal since 1995, and its demise is a major victory not only for Nevadans, but for millions of other citizens, and taxpayers across the country. Some of what remains in the current nuclear waste proposal, S. 1287, is reasonable. In particular, I have long supported providing financial relief to utilities, and their ratepayers, who are financially damaged by the Federal Government's failure to begin removing waste from reactor sites in 1998.”