Political Quotes

“Before my freshman colleagues get too concerned, I am only going to go a couple of minutes to talk about why I have been coming to the floor once each week for a whole debate on high-level nuclear waste and a national repository that is defined in law, a law passed in 1982 that that national repository would be at Yucca Mountain. So I have been going through a geography lesson about where we have nuclear waste in this country, comparing it to the site at Yucca Mountain, and then addressing the positions of our colleagues on the Senate side from those affected States. The House has spoken on Yucca Mountain again this year in a vote in which 297 of my colleagues joined me in ensuring that we had enough money to finish the scientific study to finally bring closure to Yucca Mountain and, if the science is sound, then start moving high-level nuclear waste from all over this country to a single repository. So today I come to the floor to highlight another location. This is Yucca Mountain. And I want to remind folks that Yucca Mountain has no nuclear waste onsite right now. The waste, once it gets to Yucca Mountain, will be stored 1,000 feet underground. The nuclear waste will be 1,000 feet above the groundwater. And Yucca Mountain is 100 miles from the Colorado River. So it's pretty far. It's in a mountain. It's in a desert. It is pretty far from ever being close to major bodies of water.…”