Jeff Bingaman: “I said at that time I believed the overall legislation, not that particular amendment but the overall legislation, was…”

“I said at that time I believed the overall legislation, not that particular amendment but the overall legislation, was very important and was necessary to solve particular problems we have with our nuclear waste program, but that the particular provisions in that amendment that was before us yesterday did not solve those problems and, in fact, the particular language in that amendment created some additional problems. That was why I could not support the language we were considering yesterday. We have, of course, gone beyond that. We now have a new substitute amendment which has many changes in it. It was my hope that when we got to this substitute, it would fix the problems and concerns I had. I commend the chairman of the committee for a number of constructive improvements he did make in this substitute.”