Jeff Bingaman: “I am pleased to be joined by my colleague from Alaska, and the ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Natural…”

“I am pleased to be joined by my colleague from Alaska, and the ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Lisa Murkowski, in urging passage of the Insular Areas Act of 2011. This legislation would enact three time- sensitive provisions needed to improve the operation of certain Federal programs in the U.S. territory of American Samoa and in the freely associated states of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau. First, section 2 of the bill would amend the Compact of Free Association Amendments Act of 2003 to direct the Secretary of Energy, as a part of the Department's Marshall Islands radiation monitoring program, to also periodically monitor the containment structure on Runit Island where nuclear cleanup wastes are buried. This new monitoring would include a visual inspection of the containment structure and a radiochemical analysis of groundwater surrounding and in the structure. This section of the bill further requires the Secretary to submit a report to Congress with the results of the monitoring. Finally, the section requires that the Secretary of the Interior shall make available to DOE, from existing technical assistance funds, the funding needed to conduct the chemical analysis of groundwater.…”