Wayne Allard: “If the Senator from South Carolina will yield, I wish to enter into a colloquy with him to make sure we have laid out…”

“If the Senator from South Carolina will yield, I wish to enter into a colloquy with him to make sure we have laid out this debate. First, we had a plan by the DOE to expedite cleanups of sites in South Carolina, Washington, and Idaho. Then we had a court case that was litigated in the district court in Idaho. As a result of that, that case is going to definitely be appealed to the Federal court of appeals and may even go as far as the U.S. Supreme Court. In the meantime, we have some cleanup needs in these various States. As I understand what the Senator's amendment would provide, we are going to keep our $350 million for cycling, which is vital, and it is going to say that the money is going to be available for treatment. But we are not going to have any removal or anything from a contaminated site, except for South Carolina. South Carolina has a plan that has been worked out with the State. The State is very comfortable with it. It is a State-driven plan. We are trying to work out something where we don't create a problem among the various States. We don't want this process to tie up South Carolina and, obviously, we want to see cleanup move ahead in Idaho and Washington. My concern, as chairman of the subcommittee, is that I don't want to see taxpayer dollars wasted on a huge white elephant out there that will add something like $86 billion to the cleanup budget, which we don't have. I hope we can work this out, and you are trying to work it out among yourselves.”