Rod Grams: “anyone who has followed this contentious debate will agree achieving this legislative solution has been a very difficult…”

“anyone who has followed this contentious debate will agree achieving this legislative solution has been a very difficult process, but it is a process that we cannot afford to wait until after the next election to resolve. The Department of Energy is legally bound to begin accepting spent fuel in the next few years, and yet, until this Congress, we have not identified even a temporary storage location, let alone finish suitability tests on a permanent one. And the pressure by the States for a solution continues to build. Over 30 States across this Nation have commercial and nuclear waste that is now stored inside their borders. Unless Congress enacts a permanent solution soon, States, like my home State of Minnesota, will lose between 20 and 30 percent of their overall energy supply shortly after the turn of the century. The irony is that the ratepayers of my State have already paid $250 million-plus to the Federal Government for the promise that the waste would be removed. Nearly two decades later, ratepayers are no closer to getting rid of their nuclear waste than they were before the Department of Energy gave its written promise to remove it. Mr. President, I would also like to add that that has led Minnesota's Department of Public Service Commissioner Sanda to call for the halting of the ratepayer contributions to this fund.”