Patrick Leahy: “since my first days in the U.S. Senate, I have expressed strong concerns about nuclear power. The claims made in the…”

“since my first days in the U.S. Senate, I have expressed strong concerns about nuclear power. The claims made in the 1970s that nuclear power was going to bring our country cheap, reliable and clean energy have turned out--as many warned at the time-- to be far from the truth. While electricity from nuclear power has been reliable, it is neither cheap nor clean. The waste from these plants is an enormous and undisputed economic liability for the Nation, and it is far from environmentally clean. After all these years of coasting on these false promises about nuclear power, the bill has come due. Today we have 29 years of nuclear waste in Vermont in the form of spent fuel in temporary storage on the banks of the Connecticut River, and we cannot ignore that it needs to be managed. Part of that management, especially since September 11 and all of our heightened security since then, is to better secure on-site waste until it can be transported to a safer location. And part of that management is to create that safer location, officially designating Yucca Mountain as the single, high-security site for the bulk of nuclear waste that is now dispersed across our country. While I know that some waste will always be located on-site at operating nuclear plants, we must locate the bulk of the waste at a single, secure site.”