Jeff Bingaman: “let me respond to the question. I do think the Senator is wrong in his understanding. First of all, let me make clear…”

“let me respond to the question. I do think the Senator is wrong in his understanding. First of all, let me make clear, my amendment does not exempt anything from the reporting requirements. The reporting requirements in the bill, where you have to estimate the costs and estimate where the costs would fall, remain in place. Those have to be obtained before any legislation comes to the floor, and none of that is changed under my amendment. What my amendment does say, though, is that in this very important area related to treatment or disposal of nuclear waste, in that very important area, if the Federal Government determines that some action should take place, you cannot raise a point of order that says it is out of order to consider the legislation, absent full funding by the Federal Government. That is all my proposed amendment does. The Senator was saying this would open up the possibility of the Federal Government saying to the States: Washington State, you are responsible for Hanford. That possibility exists today. That possibility will exist in the future. Theoretically, we could do that at any point, just to the same extent we do it today. That is the way the Constitution set up our Federal system. So that possibility is always there for the Federal Government to step in and do that kind of a thing. Clearly, though, that is not consistent with the way this country has viewed responsibility, sharing the responsibility for nuclear power.”