Reid: The transport of these six casks required 30,000 police and $100 million. More than 170 people were injured during demonstrations, more than 500 arrested. Even the police have called for an end to the shipments; they no more like arresting demonstrators (who many sympathize with) than they like guarding highly radioactive waste casks. I personally measured the radiation from
one of these casks: at 15 feet, it was 50 times higher than background levels--an amount no one should involuntarily be exposed to, and pregnant women and children should never be exposed to. The police, of course, stand much closer than 15 feet, and for hours at a time.

Eight casks, of 420, have been shipped to Gorleben. Total cost to the German government has been about $150 million. Each shipment the protests and anger increase, instead of dying down.

Perhaps obviously, while watching the casks lumber down the highway toward Gorleben, at about 2 miles per hour (it took them about six hours to move the final 14 miles), surrounded by police and protestors, I reflected on what this might mean to our own radioactive waste programs. We're not trying to move six casks, or eight, or even 420. Under S. 104, we could be moving as many as 70,000 casks--not six in one year, but six every day. And we wouldn't be moving them 300 miles, but many hundreds and thousands of miles at a time.

I frankly don't know if we will experience protests like those in Germany, though I suspect we will. But I do know we will experience the same type of anger expressed by the local farmers and townspeople, the same type of distrust of government and authority, and the same kinds of societal divisions. And I have to ask myself, has anyone in the Senate actually thought about what these waste shipments could mean? I fear not.

Nor, I am convinced, is the U.S. government as prepared as the German government to handle these shipments. Germany was able to place 30,000 police, brought in from all across the country, along the transport route. Medical people and the Red Cross were well in evidence. The first line of emergency responders--the police--obviously were present for every mile of the transport. And they were clearly well-trained, if sometimes visibly uncomfortable in their roles.

It will not work to simply load up a huge cask of high-level atomic waste from a nuclear utility and send it onto an American highway or railway like a truck or boxcar carrying cars or oranges or even gasoline or some other hazardous material. Radioactive waste shipments are qualitatively different and require much more thought, planning and contemplation than the U.S. Senate so far appears willing to provide.

In the end, it required establishment of a literal police state in the Wendland area of Germany, and very nearly a war zone, to complete this cask movement. I do not believe this would be a credible or accepted policy in the United States.

With only eight of 420 casks shipped, Germany's Parliament is re-evaluating the entire program. Perhaps we can learn from them, and begin our re-evaluation before the shipments start.

I would be happy to further brief you or your colleagues on my experiences at your convenience.

It is signed by Michael Mariotte.

So, Mr. President, saying you can ship these casks with no problem is just not common sense, in light of what has happened in other places of the world. In the country of Germany, a very sophisticated country, Parliament has had to stop the shipment program.

This substitute is no different from the bill as originally submitted. S. 104 and its nuclear industry advocates insist that waste will be stored in Nevada no matter what. And they do not at all consider the transportation problems, as I indicated we should. The substitute amendment says that if Yucca Mountain is determined unacceptable by the President, then a different interim storage site must be designated within 24 months. If a different interim site is not so designated within that period, then Nevada would become the default storage site.