Nuclear Information and Resource Service 1424 16th Street NW, #404, Washington, DC 20036 202-328-0002; fax: 202-462-2183; e-mail: nirsnet@igc.apc.org Web: www.nirs.org S. 1936--Mobile Chernobyl Act--on the Senate Floor--Update #1 July 12, 1996 The filibuster against S. 1936, the "Mobile Chernobyl Act," has now been continuing on the Senate floor for two days, and could go on quite a while longer. Nevada Senators Harry Reid and Richard Bryan are doing a magnificent job of blocking the Senate from doing its business, and in the process educating the American public (at least those watching C-Span) on the details of radioactive waste policy and of this dangerous bill. There will NOT be a final vote on S. 1936 on Monday, July 15. The earliest a final vote could now occur is Thursday, July 18, and there is good reason to believe it will be later than that. The schedule now looks like this (but is subject to change): On Tuesday, July 16, there will be an initial "cloture" vote to cut off debate on the "motion to proceed." This simply means that the Senate will vote on whether to cut off the Reid/Bryan filibuster on whether the bill should even come to the floor. We expect to lose this vote. Then, Reid/Bryan will filibuster the bill itself. After up to 30 hours of debate, a more meaningful cloture vote can take place. We expect this to most likely occur Thursday or Friday. This vote is expected to be very close. If the vote succeeds, then S. 1936 will be voted on and most likely approved. If it fails, S. 1936 is, in all probability, permanently finished. Reid/Bryan need 40 votes to win. However, Reid/Bryan have also begun a filibuster against the Defense Appropriations bill as a means of further protecting their filibuster on S. 1936. And at a press conference this morning, they strongly suggested that they may filibuster EVERY piece of legislation that comes up before the Senate between now and the end of the session. What all this means is that you have some time. Please use it well. Activitate phone trees, call your friends, cajole your neighbors. We need as many phone calls, faxes and e-mails to the Senate as possible for the next several days. Please call your own Senators, and also call Senators Reid and Bryan (they are under tremendous pressure from Senate leadership to end their filibuster, and need to know they have support). Even if your Senator is definitely for, or definitely against, S. 1936, calls need to be made anyway. Commitments have a way of breaking down in the highly-charged atmosphere Reid and Bryan have created. Senators need to know people across the country are watching, and that they support this filibuster. The message: Oppose S. 1936. Support the Reid/Bryan filibuster. Vote No on cloture. Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121 Congressional Record transcripts of highlights of the first two days of debate are now available at NIRS' web site: www.nirs.org There is also much background information on the bill, its predecessors (S. 1271, S. 167) and its House counterpart (HR 1020). Here are a couple of highlights: Mr. BRYAN. If I understand what the Senator is saying, this is absolutely astounding. Is the Senator suggesting that the EPA has said, as a safe drinking standard for America, 4 millirems? That is per year? Mr. REID. Four millirems is the correct answer. Mr. BRYAN. As the Senator well knows, the WIPP is a facility in New Mexico designed to receive transuranic nuclear waste. Is the Senator indicating for the good citizens of New Mexico, 15 millirems? Mr. REID. The Senator is correct. Mr. BRYAN. And that the citizens in the State of Nevada--we were admitted to the Union, if I recall, before the good State of New Mexico--but somehow for the rest of America, they have a 4-millirem standard for safe drinking water, at another nuclear storage area in our country they are proposing 15 millirems, but in the State of Nevada from a sole source, a single source, they are suggesting that Nevadans would have to accept a standard of 100 millirems from one source on an annual basis? Is that what they are suggesting? Mr. REID. My colleague is absolutely right, absolutely right. In Nevada they are saying, `We're going to pour this cement pad and dump this out. If it leads to 100 millirems exposure, that is OK.' That is what they are saying. Mr. LOTT. I yield for a question. Mrs. BOXER. As I listened to the Senator from Alaska, there is a way to break through all this. As I hear the Senators in Nevada, they will not object to moving to the defense bill at all. As a matter of fact, as long as I have known them, they have worked hard on those bills, as hard as anyone else here. But they are saying, if this particular bill dealing with nuclear waste would be pulled, they would not object. If I might ask my friends, are they not saying that the reason they are objecting is because they are bringing this nuclear waste bill forward? Mr. REID. Will the majority leader yield so that I may answer the question? Mr. LOTT. I yield for the Senator to answer the question. Mr. REID. ...We are not the ones holding things up. It is being held up because they are moving on this bill, which the President said he is going to veto. Maybe we cannot continue this forever. But it is going to take weeks of the Senate's time on nuclear waste. We know what our rights are, and we felt that we offered a reasonable proposal to move this along, get the appropriations bills done before the September reconvening of the Senate. But this is an issue that is important. It is important not only to the people in the State of Nevada but for this country. And for us to say we are going to walk away from this would be something that we cannot do. Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I could respond to the comments. Again, I have said several times today that I understand the feelings of the Senators from Nevada. I am sympathetic to them. But this legislation has been crafted very carefully, in a bipartisan way, by the committee of jurisdiction, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. It has been in the making literally for years. I am under the impression that 65 Senators will vote to end the debate on this, will vote for cloture.How can the majority leader refuse to bring up a bill and try to pass a bill of this consequence, which involves radioactive nuclear waste, when 65 Senators want an opportunity to vote on it? Now, I understand how they feel, but two Senators are thwarting the wishes of 65 Senators and their constituents all across America. I have no option but to bring up legislation of this importance, which involves that many States with that many Senators. Mrs. BOXER. May I ask the majority leader this. I understand his point, but 74 or so Senators voted for the minimum wage, and we do not seem to get action on that. So it is a matter of priorities, I say...... Mr. REID. I say, respectfully, to the majority leader, with whom I served in the House in a leadership position there and now in a leadership position here, that we know you have the right to bring this up. But, also, I, the Senator from Nevada, did not work out these rules. These rules were worked out many years ago. It started with the Constitution and the Senate rules that are in existence. I did not draw them up. I am just playing by the rules. The majority leader knew--or should have known, as we say in the law--that this would happen. You are--and I do not mean `you' in the pejorative sense--holding up the progress; we are not....