Political Quotes

“It's always great to follow the highly respected minority whip, and he is highly respected. I would say that there are a lot of pressing problems in this country. There is one I'll speak about today, and that's the high-level nuclear waste storage throughout this country. I would also say to my friend that part of the jobs bill has been passed. We passed the free trade agreement; we passed the veterans benefit portion; we passed the 3 percent withholding. So there has been movement in a bipartisan manner on some provisions in the bill. So now, Mr. Speaker, let me segue to an issue for which I've come to the floor now six times, that of going throughout the country and highlighting where high-level nuclear waste is stored throughout this country. Today, we'll travel to the State of Massachusetts, right on Cape Cod Bay where the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant sits. Again, it's right on Cape Cod Bay. At Pilgrim, there are over 2,918 spent-fuel assemblies on site. Yucca Mountain, which is the defined storage location, by law, in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, currently has no nuclear waste on site. I like to keep highlighting the real distinct differences based upon the years of talking about this issue and highlighting some of the arguments against Yucca, comparing it to where we have nuclear waste today. So let's, again, continue to look at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant. The waste is stored aboveground in pools, very similar to Fukushima- Diachi in Japan.…”