John Ensign: “Mr. Chairman, before I go on to talk about this amendment, which deals with safety, I want to talk about the comment…”

“Mr. Chairman, before I go on to talk about this amendment, which deals with safety, I want to talk about the comment that the subcommittee chairman made on the last amendment when he said that, well, of course, if the Governors had their choice, every one of them would oppose nuclear waste being transported across their State and they would stop it. He said every Governor. He may want to retract that statement, but he said every Governor. Does it not make sense that we would oppose a bill if every Governor in every State does not want nuclear waste being transported across their State? Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment, and this amendment would simply require certification by FEMA, and by the way, this is an independent agency, that adequate appropriations, in other words, monies be appropriated to exist for the emergency response teams that are going to be necessary across those 43 States if an accident did occur. Local fire and police departments will be the first ones on the scene of a nuclear waste accident, and it is vitally important that these forces are mobilized and trained in responding to possible radiation leaks.”