Harry Reid: “So, Madam President, what we are saying is that this amendment simply establishes what should be the law of this land.…”

“So, Madam President, what we are saying is that this amendment simply establishes what should be the law of this land. That is, if you are going to haul, as indicated in the chart behind the manager of the bill and the chart behind my colleague from the State of Nevada, showing all these routes all over the country, what we are saying is this product, if it is going to be transported through a State, the Governor should give the OK. We have been told here for several days now that transporting this product is going to be just as safe as carrying a quart of milk from the store to your home. If that is the case, the Governors that I have mentioned, Beasley, Hunt, Romer, O'Bannon, Voinovich, Wilson from California, Miller from Nevada--and all the other fine Governors, chief executives of the States, they should be able to sit down with their staffs, it should be explained to them how safe this is, they would sign on the dotted line, and their constituents would feel happy that the government was protecting their interests. If we do not do this we are going to wind up with a situation that has already occurred in recent days in Europe where, to move this product in the country of Germany, 300 miles, you had to call up 30,000 police and armed guards to transport at the rate of 2 miles an hour. They had to go 2 miles an hour because people had dug huge holes under the roadways and put in, in effect, disguised covers so these vehicles would fall into them--2 miles an hour.”