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HON. SHELLEY BERKLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEVADA Ms. Berkley. I have the same clock that Congressman Gibbons has. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to address you. Before I begin my testimony, I ask that Senator Richard Bryan's testimony be entered into the record. Mr. Barton. Without objection. [The prepared statement of Hon. Richard Bryan follows:] Prepared Statement of Hon. Richard Bryan, a U.S. Senator from the State of Nevada Mr. Chairman, thank you for permitting me to testify before the Subcommittee today. As you know, we in Nevada have a keen interest in the legislation before the Subcommittee today?for us, it is literally a life or death issue. The legislation before the Subcommittee today shows a callous disregard for the health and safety of Nevadans, and millions of Americans across the nation. Nevadans have been the unwilling victims of a nearly twenty year political campaign orchestrated by the nuclear power industry at the expense, of our, and future generations of Nevadans', health and safety. Today we are discussing yet another potential chapter in this long and disgraceful story. The bill before the Subcommittee today is a response to the industry's high level of frustration with the federal high-level waste program?but it is a poorly conceived, selfserving, and irresponsible one. Nevadans had no part in creating the commercial nuclear power industry's waste problem, but are nevertheless expected to bear the full burden of the industry's environmental legacy. Now, as scientific data begins to bear out our long held position that the site cannot be found suitable, the industry has proposed yet another round of political gerrymandering to again rewrite the rules, and attempt to overcome the scientific and engineering obstacles to shipping its waste to Nevada. The industry knows, however, that to overcoming the scientific obstacles to shipping its waste to Nevada is no small task?and that is why this legislation is such an environmental travesty. In addition to siting an unnecessary and unsafe "interim storage" facility in Nevada, the legislation makes a mockery of decades of bipartisan environmental protection statutes. It establishes a radiation release standard far less protective than any other federal, or international, standard. The legislation proposes to subject Nevadans to radiation releases 25 times that allowed under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and more than 6 times that allowed for the WIPP facility in New Mexico. It guts NEPA, the primary federal statute designed to provide confidence to the public in federal environmental activities. It places 50 million citizens in 43 states along transportation routes for the waste shipments in harm's way. The state of every member of this Committee is along these transportation routes. It provides a multi-billion dollar windfall to nuclear utilities, who are attempting to dodge their financial responsibility for the storage and disposal of their waste. Finally, the bill before the Subcommittee adds to the already dangerous and misguided nuclear repository program a new, even more irresponsible "interim" storage program. Interim storage at the NTS is not only unnecessary, it seriously compromises the characterization of the Yucca Mountain site as a permanent repository. Siting centralized interim storage at the NTS prior to an objective, science based evaluation of Yucca Mountain prejudges the outcome of the characterization process, and will eliminate any hope of public confidence in the study the Yucca Mountain site. The sole purpose of this legislation is to shift the burden of the nuclear power industry's waste problem to the people of Nevada and the American taxpayer. Under this legislation, the utilities are the winners, and Nevadans, and every other citizen with even a shred of respect for the environment, are the clear losers. Despite the "rosy scenario" of the Department of Energy's "viability assessment," it would be difficult to find anyone today willing to wager that Yucca Mountain will ever be licensed. Despite the Department of Energy's best efforts to explain them all away, scientific data continue to build and cast doubt on the ability of the Department to ever demonstrate that the site can safely contain high level waste. The geology underground has proven difficult to model; recent data at the adjoining NTS have demonstrated far faster migration of plutonium underground than DOE scientists have predicted. The important question of water seepage through the site remains open; higher than expected levels of Chlorine 36 at the repository level can only be explained by water penetration from the surface in the last few decades. Volcanic activity in the area appears to have been far more recent than previously estimated. Seismic activity?a particularly important issue in relation to interim storage?continues to be very active. Yucca Mountain, and the NTS, lie within the second most active seismic area in the continental United States. Well over 600 earthquakes registering over 3.0 on the Richter scale have been recorded in the area in the past twenty years-including six last month, two of which registered over 4.5. The area around Yucca Mountain and NTS is a constantly shifting, very active geological formation?hardly a suitable site for an underground repository, and even less suitable for an above ground interim storage" facility. The cost of the repository?without even including any new interim storage?has gone through the roof, and will outstrip the current projected revenue of the Nuclear Waste Fund by tens of billions of dollars. The DOE's current estimate of the cost to complete the repository?which does not include interim storage-is a staggering S36.6 billion. The legislation before the Subcommittee today faces little or no chance of enactment. It is opposed by every major environmental group. Both the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board oppose centralized interim storage, as well as the bill's necessary diversion of resources away from characterization of Yucca Mountain. The President will veto the bill, and we will have the votes in the Senate to sustain the President's veto. I urge the Subcommittee to reject this misguided legislation. Ms. Berkley. This hearing puts me in mind of that old saying everything has been said, but not everyone has said it. I come before you to give voice to the well-founded fears and concerns of the citizens of the Las Vegas Valley, which is my home district, and the citizens of the entire State of Nevada. Over 1.5 million Nevadans live within an hour or so drive of the so-called temporary high-level nuclear dump proposed by H.R. 45. This bill would dump over 70,000 tons of incredibly lethal substance in one location in southern Nevada. Those Nevadans, mothers like me, fathers, sons, daughters, and grandparents, deserve the same health and safety protections as every other American. H.R. 45 would deny equal protection under the law to the citizens of Nevada and future generations of Nevadans. But I will also discuss how this bill places Americans in all parts of the country at risk. When you live in a State that has been singled out as a target for a nuclear payload, you give close attention to this issue. Nevadans know just how toxic, how dangerous, how menacing high-level nuclear waste really is. To give you some idea, a person standing next to an unshielded spent nuclear fuel assembly would get a fatal dose of radiation within just 3 minutes. Under H.R. 45, the concentrated level of deadly radiation at one place in my home State staggers the imagination. H.R. 45 would force all of the nation's high-level waste on the people of one State, a State where there is not even one nuclear reactor. For nearly two decades, the nuclear industry and the Department of Energy have tried to convince Nevadans that high-level nuclear waste transportation and storage is safe. Their argument basically is we will just stuff this high-level nuclear waste into metal cans, screw the lids on tight, and there is nothing to worry about. What is wrong with this picture? Well, if those cans of nuclear waste are so safe, why do they have to be shipped from all over the United States and dumped in Nevada? That question has haunted Nevadans for years, and our concerns have again intensified with H.R. 45. This bill would unleash high-level nuclear waste onto the Nation's highways and rail lines. It is this issue, that transportation of high-level nuclear waste, that binds Nevadans and all Americans as potential victims of H.R. 45. Americans from all parts of the country would be exposed to unacceptable and unnecessary risk because they live near highways and railways where the nuke trucks and trains would roll. Moving nuclear waste to Nevada would require well over 100,000 long-haul shipments. Nuclear waste would be speeding around the clock every day for 30 years over our roads and rails. This should sound a national alarm. The deadly cargo would intrude on 43 States and hundreds of cities and towns. Fifty million Americans live within just a half a mile of the shipping routes. The waste will rumble through Birmingham, Alabama; Laramie, Wyoming; Portland, Maine; and the suburbs of Los Angeles; Miami, Florida; Kansas City, and St. Louis, Missouri. In short, nuclear waste will be on the move all over the country for all time for 30 years. The Department of Transportation counted more than 99,000 incidents in which hazardous materials were released from trucks and trains from 1987 to 1996 causing 356 injuries and 114 deaths. The Department of Energy has described a plausible crash scenario involving high impact and fire that would contaminate an area of 42 square miles with radioactive debris. It is truly horrifying to picture this happening in a populated area. We have been repeatedly told that shipping nuclear waste across the country and stashing it at a dump site is safe, but let's take a brief look at the history of how the Federal Government has handled nuclear projects. The lands around nuclear installations at Hanford, Washington; Rocky Flats, Colorado; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Fernald, Ohio, are contaminated. The GAO concluded that 124 of our 127 nuclear sites has been mismanaged by the DOE. Nevadans don't buy into the don't worry, be happy attitude toward radiation, and for good reason. I grew up in Nevada. Nevadans are proud to volunteer for the patriotic chore of playing host to above- and below-ground nuclear weapons testing, but the Federal Government never leveled with us about the risks. In the 1950's, the government produced films advising if people just stayed indoors as clouds of fallout drifted through our communities, everyone would be safe. As a safety measure, the government suggested that a quick car wash would eliminate any pesky radioactive contamination. It seems harmless enough if it wasn't for the evidence of a disturbing increase in cancer that later traumatized these same communities; harmless, perhaps, if above-ground testing didn't spread radioactive elements across the country. Supposedly safe above-ground nuclear tests were stopped when it was proved that radiation was winding up in the bodies of American children through the milk that they were drinking. Underground testing was supposed to be the safe answer, or so the government said. The radioactivity would be trapped underground, never to get out except when some of the underground shafts burst open spewing radiation into the air, and now scientists are finding that plutonium thought to be trapped in these test shafts is moving through the ground water at alarming speed. So I have a healthy skepticism about Federal nuclear programs. My healthy? Mr. Barton. Could you summarize? It is amazing in the short time you have been in the Congress you are already right at home in going beyond the time limit. You are doing very well. Ms. Berkley. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I will be brief. H.R. 45 would be a terrible and needless mistake. If passed, it would be fought in court by Americans across this country. I would stand with them in court or on the roads and the rails if necessary to stop this disastrous policy. Thank you very much for your attention. Mr. Barton. Thank you. Thank you, Congresswoman. Ms. Berkley. May I submit my full remarks for the record. Mr. Barton. Your entire statement is in the record. [The prepared statement of Hon. Shelley Berkley follows:] Prepared Statement of Hon. Shelley Berkley, a Representative in Congress from the State of Nevada Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee: Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to address you. This hearing puts me in mind of that old saying everything has been said but not everyone has said it. Before I begin my testimony I ask that Senator Richard Bryan's testimony be entered into the record. I come before you to give voice to the well-founded fears and concerns of the citizens of the Las Vegas Valley?which is my home District?and the citizens of the entire state of Nevada. Over one and a half million Nevadans live within an hour or so drive from the so-called temporary hi-level nuclear dump proposed by H.R. 45. This bill would dump over 70,000 tons of an incredibly lethal substance at one location . . . in southern Nevada. Those Nevadans? mothers, like me . . . fathers, sons, daughters, and grandparents deserve the same health and safety protections as every American. HR 45 would deny equal protection under the law to the citizens of Nevada and future generations. But I will also discuss how this bill places Americans in all parts of the country at risk. When you live in a state that has been singled out as the target for a nuclear payload, you give close attention to the issue. Nevadans know just how toxic, how dangerous, how menacing high level nuclear waste really is. To give you some idea, a person standing next to an unshielded spent nuclear fuel assembly would get a fatal dose of radiation in just three minutes. Under H.R. 45, the concentrated level of deadly radiation at one place?in my home state?staggers the imagination. H.R. 45 would force all of the nation's high-level waste on the people of one state . . . a state where there is not even one nuclear reactor. For nearly two decades the nuclear industry and the Department of Energy have tried to convince Nevadans that high level nuclear waste transportation and storage is safe. Their argument basically is, "We'll just stuff this high level nuclear waste into metal cans, screw the lids on tight, and there's nothing to worry about." What's wrong with that picture? Well, if those cans of nuclear waste are so safe . . . WHY DO THEY HAVE TO BE SHIPPED FROM ALL OVER THE UNITED STATES AND DUMPED IN NEVADA? That question has haunted Nevadans for years. And our concerns have again intensified with H.R. 45. This bill would unleash high level nuclear waste on to the nation's highways and rail lines. It is this issue?the transportion of high level nuclear waste?that binds Nevadans with all Americans as potential victims of HR 45. Americans from all parts of the country would be exposed to unacceptable and unnecessary risk . . . because they live near the highways and railroads where the nuke trucks and trains would roll. Moving nuclear waste to Nevada will require well over 100,000 long-haul shipments. Nuclear waste will be speeding . . . around the clock, everyday, for 30 years . . . over our roads and rails. This should sound a national alarm. The deadly cargo will intrude on 43 states and hundreds of cities and towns. 50 million Americans live within just a half mile of the shipping routes. The waste will rumble through Birmingham, Alabama and Laramie, Wyoming. Portland, Maine and the suburbs of Los Angeles. Miami, Florida and Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri. In short, nuclear waste will be on the move all over the country . . . all the time . . . for 30 years. The Dept. Of Transportation counted more than 99,000 incidents in which hazardous materials were released from trucks and trains, from 1987 to 1996 . . . causing 356 major injuries and 114 deaths. The Dept. of Energy has described a plausible crash scenario involving high impact and fire that would contaminate an area of 42 square miles with radioactive debris. It is truly horrifying to picture this happening in a populated area. We've been repeatedly told that shipping nuclear waste across the country and stashing it at a dumpsite is safe. But let's take a brief look at the history of how the federal government has handled nuclear projects. The lands around nuclear installations at Hanford, Washington . . . Rocky Flats, Colorado . . . Oakridge, Tennessee . . . Fernald, Ohio . . . are contaminated. The GAO concluded that 124 of our 127 nuclear sites had been mismanaged by the DOE. Nevadans don't buy into the x" don't worry, be happy" attitude toward radiation. And for good reason. I grew up in Nevada. Nevadans were proud to volunteer for the patriotic chore of playing host to above and below ground nuclear weapons testing. But the federal government never leveled with us about the risks. In the 1950's the government produced films advising if people just stayed indoors as clouds of fallout drifted through communities, everyone would be safe. As a safety measure, the government suggested that a quick car wash would eliminate any pesky radioactive contamination. It seems harmless enough . . . if it weren't for the evidence of a disturbing increase in cancer that later traumatized these communities. Harmless, perhaps, if above ground testing didn't spread radioactive elements across the country. Supposedly "safe" above ground nuclear tests were stopped when it was proved that radiation was winding up in the bodies of American children through the milk they were drinking. Underground testing was supposed to be the safe answer . . . or so the government said. The radioactivity would be trapped underground? never to get out. . . except that some of the underground shafts burst open, spewing radiation into the air. And now, scientists are finding that plutonium, thought to be trapped in those test shafts?is moving through the ground water at alarming speed. So I have a healthy skepticism about federal nuclear programs. My healthy skepticism persuades me that H.R. 45 is in fact a Trojan Horse for permanently dumping high level waste in Nevada. Make no mistake, there is nothing "temporary" about HR 45. This bill is a political vehicle to get the waste to Nevada, to be conveniently parked next door to Yucca Mountain, the site of a failing effort to justify a permanent dump. The past year has been marked by a quickening pace of scientific evidence that clearly eliminates Yucca Mountain as a safe place for nuclear waste. Water will saturate the dump. Those who thought Yucca Mountain would be dry for 10,000 years are stunned to discover that water is filtering through at an alarming rate. Yucca Mountain has been, . . . is, . . . and always will be jolted by earthquakes. In recent days, seismologists described swarms of earthquakes that rocked the area. To visit Yucca Mountain is to feel the earth move. And, a growing number of scientists fear that a Yucca Mountain dump, intended to isolate deadly radioactivity forever, may well explode into an environmental apocalypse of volcanic eruptions. It is not nice to try to fool Mother Nature. Where earthquakes, water, and volcanic activity are permanent dangers, we must not build a high level nuclear dump. The nuclear power industry should immediately cancel the Yucca Mountain project. The billions of dollars coming from ratepayers would be better spent finding a sensible and safe solution to nuclear disposal. Instead, we have HR 45. This bill exists because the nuclear power industry sees that the only way to keep the Yucca Mountain Project alive is to build a temporary dump next door. With the waste were stacked up at a temporary dump near Yucca Mountain, there would be a powerful motivation to make Yucca Mountain work out?somehow. Under those circumstances, I fear that the health and safety of current and future generations would be jeopardized for the sake of expediency. As the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board has clearly stated, a temporary facility at the Nevada Test Site could prejudice the later decisions about the suitability of Yucca Mountain. HR 45 has its roots in expediency over public health and welfare. HR 45 throws out existing radiation safety standards . . . and replaces them with dangerous levels of radiation exposure that would be quote "acceptable." The temporary dump can not meet the current standards, so HR 45 permits Nevadans to be exposed to 4 to 6 times the amount of radiation allowed at other waste sites. HR 45 allows exposure 25 times the level set by the Safe Drinking Water Act. EPA Administrator Carol Browner said HR 45 would authorize "exposures to future generations of Nevadans which are much higher than those allowed for other Americans and citizens of other countries." Congress, in 1982, called for 9 potential nuclear storage sites to be assessed. By 1987, due to political considerations . . . not scientific findings . . . Yucca Mountain alone was targeted for site characterization. As it became increasingly clear Yucca Mountain is not suitable under the stringent and responsible law Congress passed in 1982, the rules have repeatedly been relaxed in favor of Yucca Mountain and against health and safety. And now comes HR 45, a bill which achieves nothing but risks the health and safety of current and future generations. The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board advises that there are no compelling reasons to move the nuclear waste in the short term. HR 45 would be a terrible and needless mistake. If passed, it will be fought in court by Americans across the country. I would stand with them in court?or on the roads and rails, if necessary to stop this disastrous policy.