Rod Grams: “I rise today because after 16 years of denials, delays, and indifference on the part of the U.S. Department of Energy…”

“I rise today because after 16 years of denials, delays, and indifference on the part of the U.S. Department of Energy, the American taxpayers are about to find themselves saddled with the liability for our nation's nuclear waste. It is a liability they do not deserve, and one they most certainly cannot afford. Unfortunately, the President failed to warn them on Tuesday night during his State of the Union address that many of the achievements he acknowledged are at risk--threatened by a federal government failure so massive that it may take the taxpayers years, even decades, to burrow out from underneath it. What could be so potentially devastating? The failure of the U.S. Department of Energy to begin accepting the nation's spent commercial nuclear fuel. And, Mr. President, the taxpayers will inherit the responsibility for that failure just three days from now. At midnight on January 31, 1998, the DOE is required by law to begin accepting spent nuclear fuel from sites across the nation. The clock was set in motion 16 years ago, upon enactment of the ``Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.'' Since then, utility ratepayers have been required to pay the federal government more than 13 billion of their hard-earned dollars in exchange for the promise that the DOE would develop and build a centralized repository for the safe and efficient storage of spent nuclear fuel. But that's yet another government promise that won't be kept.”