Political Quotes

“the Senator from New Mexico stated that his amendment would in no way require anything other than the reporting requirements. They would still have to abide by the reporting requirements. The key point is that his amendment would, again, disavow that a point of order could lie against the legislation. In this very, very important issue of nuclear storage facilities--for example, spent nuclear fuel rods--we know that we have a number of commercial sites all over the United States. We know that there are certain repositories. We know that there are certain States that may be receiving the spent naval fuel, as is the case in Idaho. This sort of discussion, as you begin to get a flavor of it here, is exactly the sort of discussion that ought to take place on the floor of the Senate. So, again, this is another exclusion from the presumption that this legislation says we are in favor of State and local governments receiving the funds in order to carry out these Federal mandates. At any point, you can come and seek a waiver. It is a majority vote that would allow that waiver of the point of order at any point during the process. But I really believe that if we send this sort of a signal, you will find that States are saying: If you are not going to abide by this, if we do not have any likelihood that there will be Federal funds to carry these things out, it will continue to be an unfunded Federal mandate in the area of nuclear storage.”