NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY ACT (Senate - July 10, 1996)

Mr. BRYAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. REID. I will be happy to yield to my colleague for a question.

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?

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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. BRYAN. I must say, it prompts the question in this Senator's mind. There must be more to this than we understand. Somehow, in a deliberative chamber, that there would be a suggestion made that health and safety standards, which presumably are legislated for the Nation, and with each of us entitled to equal protection under the law, and presumably I would think we would be entitled to equal protection in terms of health and safety standards, that a Congress which purports to be interested and concerned with the rights and sovereignty of States, individual States, would suggest that one State out of the Nation, and one State alone, would have a standard applied to that State that is 25 times the safe standard for safe drinking water and would be more than 6 times the standard that the citizens of our southwestern State, New Mexico, would be subjected to for the transuranic, that somehow we have a standard of 100 millirems.

Mr. REID. The Senator is correct. The answer is yes. As the Senator from North Dakota, in questions to this Senator earlier in the day asked, is there any reason for that? No. There is no scientific basis. There is no scientific theory. There are only people who want to jam this down the throats of the people in Nevada saying, `Don't worry about it. It will be OK.'

Mr. BRYAN. I must say, the thought occurs to this Senator, and the question arises in this Senator's mind, that why would any legislative body seek to impose a standard on a single State that no other Member of this body would be willing to accept for his or her State, when what we are talking about is health and safety? We are talking about potential dangers from the standpoint of cancer,

genetic health problems, all of which, as I recall, we experience currently as a result of some of the atmospheric experiences in Nevada State in the 1950's and 1960's.

(Mr. ABRAHAM assumed the chair.)

Mr. REID. I say to my friend from Nevada, the question is absolutely pertinent. The answer is, we do not know why that standard is set. There is no scientific basis. There is none whatever.

It goes to show how maybe the two Senators from Nevada were not such great advocates after all to get the President of the United States to agree to veto this. For Heaven's sake, why would we? On this basis alone, the President should veto this legislation. On this basis alone, he should veto this legislation, notwithstanding the fact that they are trying to change the substantive law in effect since 1982, that you could not have a permanent site and a temporary site in the same State. The President of the United States has many, many reasons to veto this bill. That is why he has said he will veto the bill.