Political Quotes

“I care greatly about this because there is already more high-level nuclear waste now stored at Hanford than at any other Federal facility in the Nation. There is no place in the United States where nuclear materials are stored under worse conditions than at Hanford. So, the fact is, if there are to be tens of thousands of tons of additional nuclear waste parked at Hanford, even though it is not safely storing the waste it now has on site, there will be great problems for the Pacific Northwest. So, I tell the Senate today, and Senator Smith also joins me in this effort, that I think this is a critical public health and safety question that when, in fact, you have high-level nuclear waste stored there already and you cannot deal with that safely, you certainly should not put additional waste there. This is not, in my view, a question of not in my backyard run rampant, but that there are really public interest reasons for ensuring that additional problems are not foist upon the Pacific Northwest.”