On the recordDecember 8, 2011
Continuing to speak on this issue of just looking at it, to kind of get away from just the nuclear generating profit sector, to address our responsibility as stewards of a program that was developed to stop World War II and then eventually remedy these environments that had an environmental impact. Yucca Mountain, the waste storage plan for Hanford--and I've just toured it this year. The plan to gather up, deliquify, reprocess, put it in these canisters is designed to go to one location. Do you know what that location is? That location is Yucca Mountain. So our failure to move forward, or our failure--actually, the other Chamber's failure, the leader of the Senate's failure, the President of the United States' failure, just tells Washington State what? Guess what. You've got this high-level nuclear waste that's leaking, that's close to the Columbia River, and just deal with it. Just deal with it. I find that unacceptable after, as my colleague from Illinois said, $14.5 billion we've spent to prepare this site at Yucca Mountain only to have it stopped for political purposes.
