National Defense Authorization for Fiscal Year 2005

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
SENATE
June 3, 2004
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I object.
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AMENDMENT NO. 3261

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Washington [Ms. Cantwell], for herself, Mr. Hollings, Mrs. Murray, Mrs. Clinton, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Lautenberg, and Mr. Schumer, proposes an amendment numbered 3261.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I am going to start this debate on the Cantwell amendment, which is the pending amendment before us, and take 15 minutes or so, if the Chair will give me recognition of that time being up. Then, depending on how we organize the debate, I would like to defer to Senator Hollings of South Carolina because this impacts him.

We are here today to talk about whether we as a body want to change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and redefine high-level waste as something other than waste that should be taken out of tanks in Savannah River, out of Washington State Hanford tanks to be stored in a permanent repository, or whether we are going to leave some of that in the tanks in the ground and have ground water continue to be contaminated.

What my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have done is put into the Defense authorization bill a change to nuclear waste policy. It is a change in 30 years of science and policy in this country that says that spent nuclear fuel from reactors is highly radioactive, high-level waste, and should be reprocessed into glassified logs, vitrified logs, and taken to a permanent storage site.

DOE is now trying to say some of that we can leave in the tanks. We don't know how much. We would like to just say it is generally up to our discretion and leave some of that in the tanks and thereby not be clear with the Congress about what level. That is a change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982 set the standard. If my colleagues want to have a debate about changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, this Senator is more than willing to have that debate, have the proper hearings, have the proper process, and have the debate.

The actual jurisdiction for that is the Energy Committee, and that is what the Parliamentarian has ruled, that the DOD authorization bill through the Senate Armed Services Committee was not the appropriate authority for changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the language that conflicts with that within the underlying Graham amendment that we just modified-the underlying bill language which was just modified by the Graham amendment.

Why are we in this predicament? Why are the American people waking up on this day finding out that a national debate is about to ensue about changing the definition of high-level waste? And that affects every State in this country. If you are going to allow one State and the DOE to negotiate and change the definition of high-level waste, why not just change the definition of transuranic waste or other kinds of waste and then, obviously, have that definition apply to States on transportation issues, on storage issues, and many other issues?

Let's review where we are and why I am so concerned, because it impacts Washington State. The Hanford Reservation in Washington State has 50 million gallons of highly radioactive nuclear waste that is already leaking into the ground water. You can see the Hanford Reservation site here, and the Columbia River. Imagine my concern about tanks leaking into the ground and the fact that leakage contaminates ground water, and that affects the Columbia River, a major tributary through the Northwest. It affects the vitality of our economy in many ways-in fishing, in tourism, in energy generation. No one in the region wants to believe that somehow radionuclides are now in the Columbia River-which, in fact, they are-and that it is going to grow to an amount where we cannot protect humans, fish, and safe drinking water. But that is where we are heading if we don't clean up this nuclear waste.

What does it really look like at Hanford today? I point out to my colleagues, because the Hanford site, which is on the map here-you can see this is the entire Hanford site. This is the picture showing the Columbia River. This red spot here is the contaminated ground water that is already leaking into the ground from tanks at Hanford. It is an 80-square-mile area. That is a plume of various chemicals that have already leaked out of the tank at Hanford. Similar leakage is happening at Savannah river. How this is going to be cleaned up given that the leakage is already starting to affect the Columbia River is a major issue for the Northwest.

So we don't take lightly the fact that DOE has now snuck into the Defense authorization bill a change in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that would reclassify this waste and say some of it is low level and we can simply grout it. By that they mean they can pour cement and sand on top of it and say that it is now fixed.

I ask the question of my colleagues, If DOE and the State of South Carolina had the authority to make a decision on this and work together, why don't they just do it? If they are not trying to change existing law, why don't they just come together and make an agreement on cleanup? They are not because they are trying to change existing law. They are trying to change the definition of what is high-level waste. They are trying to do that without having the proper hearings, without going through the proper committees of jurisdiction, without giving people enough time and enough notice on this issue.

We could continue this debate for many days and not clearly give the American people the insight to 30 years of history of nuclear waste policy. But let's look at the various definitions of nuclear waste because it is an immense framework, that 50 years of disposal law, and what is high-level waste and its definition. It is under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. What is spent nuclear fuel? It is a definition under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. That is what this underlying bill tries to change, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act definition of "nuclear high-level waste" and how spent nuclear fuel can be treated. That is being done without a full debate and hearings in the proper committees of jurisdiction. What DOE and South Carolina are trying to do is change that definition so they can leave some of that storage in the tanks.

My colleagues would like to say this does not set a precedent. I can tell you that is not the way it is being viewed around the country. It certainly is setting a precedent. In fact, the Minneapolis Star Tribune said this provision:

. . . would also set a troubling precedent for waste handling in other states. . . . If shortcuts can be taken at Savannah River, why not at Prairie Island?

In their site? Why not Idaho, in their facility? Why not as you deal with transuranic waste in New Mexico, in Arizona, or in other States? Because if you are going to give States and DOE the ability to just negotiate definitions and change them, why are we stopping here with tank waste?

Why aren't we considering other things? This is an issue that needs the full attention of this Congress. It needs the full attention not only of the Members who come from States where we have ground water leaking and contamination. Members should realize this vote is about changing a Federal policy that has been 30 years on the books without the debate and without the science. This is an inappropriate time to be changing this policy.

What about the waste we have in these States? One report I will read for some of my colleagues before I turn it over to the Senator from South Carolina who wants to make a few points about this, the ground water contamination at Savannah River is just as serious as it is in Washington State. Yes, they have fewer tanks than we do in Washington State, but it is some of the most contaminated waste that exists.

I am very concerned that we actually do something to clean up the ground water. This report entitled "Nuclear Dumps By The Riverside: Threats to the Savannah River from Radioactive Contamination at the Savannah River Site," which was done in March of this year, says that the contamination in the ground water and surface water often greatly exceeded safe drinking water limits in both radioactive and nonradioactive toxic materials. This material threatens the Savannah River and possibly other resources in the region and comes from the radioactive hazardous waste being dumped in trenches, contaminated soil, and from the high-level waste tanks that are not being retrieved.

This is a report saying it is leaking into the ground water at Savannah River, that it is causing an impact; it is contaminating that ground water; it is causing pollution in the Savannah River. I find that very much a concern.

In Washington State, along the Columbia River, this stretch of the Columbia River has one of the largest bedding grounds for salmon in our State. Now those fish are being contaminated in a similar way if we do not come up with an effective cleanup plan.

What is the tritium and drinking water standard at Savannah River? Water that is tritium-tainted is far more dangerous to children and developing fetuses than to adults. Recent research indicates the current safe drinking water standards for tritium are not adequate to protect developing fetuses to the level comparable for that of nonpregnant adults.
What are we saying to people at Savannah River? Do not go fishing in the Savannah River? Do not provide some sort of safety for consumers who are depending on that?

The report goes on and talks about subsistence fishing in the Savannah River. We have many tribes in the Northwest that fish out of the Columbia River, too. We are not going to protect them because the level of contamination that is already in the water now is starting to show very dangerous signs for both ground water standards and subsistence fishing?

We need to do our job and clean this up. For 30 years the policy has been to take the waste out of the tanks, move it, glassify it, and put it in a permanent storage. We are changing that with very little debate in the Senate today.

Obviously, I urge my colleagues to support the Cantwell amendment which would strike this reclassification and say to DOE: Here is the cleanup money for the States of Washington, Idaho, and for Georgia, and the money should be spent on this cleanup effort.

It continues the process of cleaning up the tanks that have been classified as high-level waste, and it makes the cleanup process continue to move forward.

We took the language from Governor Kempthorne. Governor Kempthorne said to many people, including my colleagues from Idaho, that he had concern with the current underlying bill. In fact, Governor Kempthorne, like our Governor in Washington, has had to deal with this in a major way. This is what he said about the legislation:

[I]t would be a huge step backward, reinforcing public fears about our nation walking away from nuclear cleanup obligations.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed an article from the Idaho Statesman in which former Governors Cecil Andrus and Phil Batt said the same thing, that to adopt this legislation could jeopardize the full implementation and agreement.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the Idaho Statesman, June 3, 2004]
FORMER GOVERNORS RAISE CONCERN ABOUT DOE BILL ON NUCLEAR WASTE
Two former Idaho governors urged Idaho's senators Wednesday to defend a 1995 nuclear waste agreement as they vote today on two Department of Energy issues.
Former Gov. Cecil Andrus and Phil Batt raised concerns about an amendment to the $450 billion annual defense budget bill, which would allow DOE to leave some radioactive waste in the ground in South Carolina.
Critics say the bill threatens the agreement Batt negotiated for removal of nuclear waste from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. Idaho's two Republican senators say it doesn't.
"We caution our congressmen not to adopt legislation which would in any way alter or jeopardize the full implementation of the agreement," Andrus and Batt said in a joint statement.
Idaho's Republican U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo and Larry Craig say they agree with Batt and Andrus, but believe the bill doesn't threaten Batt's agreement. They say a second amendment they sponsor, which also is up for a vote today, would restore $95 million to the budget to ensure DOE keeps its commitment to Idaho.
"We are working overtime now, not only to honor those commitments, but to secure the necessary monies to allow the cleanup to continue at the INEEL," Craig said.
Craig and Crapo find themselves at odds with Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and Idaho's two Republican U.S. Reps. Mike Simpson and C.L. "Butch" Otter, who oppose the plan to reclassify South Carolina's nuclear waste. They argue that passing the bill sets a precedent threatening to undercut an Idaho victory in federal court last year that stopped DOE from reclassifying waste sludge in buried tanks from high-level to low-level waste.
"This legislation would be a huge step backward, reinforcing public fears about our nation walking away from nuclear cleanup obligations," Kempthorne said recently.
Crapo disagrees. DOE had tried to get he and Craig and Washington senators to sign on to the reclassified definition of waste, which would allow the government to clean up Cold-War era sites like the INEEL at far lower costs. But they refused.
They agreed, however, with Republican Sen. Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina, that states ought to be able to negotiate separate waste deals that would reclassify the waste differently than elsewhere, Crapo said.
"Each state has different needs and circumstances," Crapo said.
Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington has introduced an amendment that would pull Graham's agreement out of the defense bill. She has criticized Graham, Crapo and Craig for proposing the reclassification in South Carolina without a public hearing and national debate.
"If somebody thinks this is an issue that affects the state of Washington, or affects just Idaho, or affects South Carolina-it doesn't," she said. "There are bodies of water, with the potential of nuclear waste in them, that flow through many parts of our country."
Crapo said he and Craig are willing to strengthen the language in Graham's amendment to ensure it doesn't threaten Idaho, if necessary. Under the 1995 agreement, the federal government is required to remove specific nuclear waste at the INEEL to certain specifications and under deadlines, or face monetary penalties.
If DOE doesn't respect the deal, shipment of spent nuclear fuels to the INEEL from Navy reactors would have to stop.
"All I'm saying is leave our agreement alone," Batt said.
Ms. CANTWELL. Obviously, we want to move forward with the language that Kempthorne's office and others in our State of Washington and others say to DOE, to move ahead on your cleanup plans under the current law, which says that hazardous nuclear fuel, spent nuclear fuel, needs to be taken out of tanks, glassified, and put into a permanent repository. That is what we have been working toward.
This is not a debate we should be having in one afternoon on the Senate floor. It is far more complex than that. This Senator certainly did not want to have this complex debate on the Senate floor. This Senator wanted this policy to go through the normal channels for discussion.
This Senator did not fill the amendment tree last week with a process in which this Senator had to object just to get a vote. So now we are having a debate which gets a time limit on my amendment. But this Senator was not the person who set this process in motion. I will stand here and debate the policy that is before the Senate.
Mr. ALLARD. Will the Senator yield?
Ms. CANTWELL. I yield.
Ms. CANTWELL. Does the Senator have a question? I don't know that I heard the question, but let me say the underlying Graham language was never debated by the Energy Committee. The underlying Graham language was never seen prior to the Energy Committee-before this bill came out of the SASC Committee. In fact, the ranking member of the Energy Committee sent a letter saying that this SASC Committee did not have jurisdiction over this issue.
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So the Graham language in this bill has not been before the Energy Committee regarding its exact language and the impact of that language.
Now, broad concepts about whether DOE has the right to reclassify waste, yes, have been a big subject of debate. In fact, that is why I believe the courts basically said the Department of Energy does not have jurisdiction over this issue and that they have to change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act if they want to have this authority.
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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I will yield to the Senator from New Mexico, the ranking member of the Energy Committee, to give a statement, but before that I want to enter into the record a couple of documents and make a statement.
First, I have great respect for the junior Senator from South Carolina and his work on so many issues. He did a great service for many men and women in this country by leading a battle in getting health care coverage for the National Guard. There is a large percentage in our State serving in the National Guard in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and I know my State thanks him on this.
On this issue, we certainly disagree. I think it is a change in strategy, or at least a deal that has been cut behind closed doors, because I do view it as a change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. That is the way my State views it. That is the way 20 newspapers across the country view it. That is the legal opinion of staff, that it is a change to the definition of what is high-level waste.
I point out that South Carolina, up until the Senator's amendment, has been pretty consistent. I have an August 12, 2003, letter sent to the Secretary of Energy from the State of South Carolina, signed by the State of South Carolina saying DOE already has the tools it needs to address this issue; that it does not need to use a sledge hammer to get the job done, and goes ahead and says they should use the current definition of the law.
Also in March 2004, a couple of months ago, South Carolina said DOE cannot ignore Congress's intent by simply calling high-level waste by a different name. And later, South Carolina goes on to say this poses a threat to the citizens' health and natural resources.
So I find it very interesting that the State of South Carolina filed those documents in court, sent letters to the Secretary of Energy making those statements, and now all of a sudden South Carolina has changed its position. I don't know if they were saying they didn't believe in their case and that is why they wanted to spend the State's legal time and money filing it. I don't know if they have their cabinet officials signing letters to the Secretary of Energy that they don't believe. But I think actually the issue is the State of South Carolina has been pretty consistent. In fact, the House Members, when this issue was before the House of Representatives, said let's not put any language in changing the definition of what is high-level waste. If there needs to be a study, we are willing to study it. That is what the members of the South Carolina delegation voted on. So I think they have been pretty consistent.
While my colleague, the junior Member from South Carolina, is trying to move ahead on nuclear waste cleanup, I think we have a disagreement among ourselves and with what South Carolina's position has been consistently for several years now, and that is that DOE has the authority. What DOE wants to do is leave waste behind. They don't have the authority to do that, nor does science think that is a prudent way to deal with this issue.
I ask unanimous consent to have that material printed in the RECORD, Mr. President.
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Ms. CANTWELL. How much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 61 minutes for the Senator from Washington and 86 minutes 41 seconds for Senator Allard.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from New York.
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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New York for coming to the floor and speaking on this issue, and for her leadership in the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Before my colleague from Washington and I got a whiff of this plan, because the Senate Armed Services Committee met behind closed doors on this issue and the language was considered behind closed doors-I appreciate the fact that the Senator from New York was there fighting, at the very beginning, this language being put into the DOD bill. I appreciate her comments about the fact that basically we are taking a bill that is about defense authorization and now changing waste policy, and weighing down the process.
Why would we want to weigh down the process of moving something that is about supporting our troops and supporting our efforts with a change in nuclear waste policy? The House dealt with this responsibly. They said: If you want to look at this policy, let's study it and get information. So that is what the House has done.
Mr. President, I yield the Senator from Washington 15 minutes.
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Ms. CANTWELL. I yield the Senator from Michigan 10 minutes.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague's characterization of this issue. I think we have had somewhat of a debate this morning. I think probably for most people, including my colleagues, what we have done is shown that this is a very complex issue, a very complicated issue, and that it needs more discussion than a few hours on the Senate floor, because what is at stake here is the lives of individuals who are living in these communities, whose ground water may be contaminated, whose safe drinking water in the future may be contaminated at levels that are not sustainable in these areas.
Let's recap for a second where we have been in this debate, because I will have printed in the RECORD, for my colleagues to understand, the 1989 agreement between Washington State and DOE, and the 1995 agreement between the State of Idaho and DOE on cleanup.
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Let me point out, we have agreements. We have agreements with the Department of Energy on cleanup. They are agreements that basically say: DOE, keep making progress on cleanup and please continue to follow the Federal statute. The issue at hand is that somehow my colleague from South Carolina has been persuaded by the Department of Energy-an argument the State of Washington refused to buy, I might add, an argument the State of Idaho refused to buy-that somehow cleanup means we have to reclassify waste.
So, yes, States in this country have continued to push DOE on agreement. We had agreements on the books. It is unfortunate that DOE has not been able to be trusted to get cleanup done in a timely fashion. That is why States have continued to push them.
Agreements are in place. And our State continues, as Idaho and South Carolina admit in a court filing that they do not trust DOE and that DOE should move forward and it doesn't need the sledge hammer of this legislation. That is South Carolina's own testimony in court and its own testimony to the Department of Energy in a letter.
Why are we having this discussion then? We are having this discussion because, even though agreements are already in place and DOE is failing to live up to cleanup, DOE would like to now change the rules of the game and change the definition of high-level waste.
If you think about it, the point of the Senator from South Carolina is that his State should have the right to agree with DOE to clean things up, and that he is not changing current law.
If that were the case, why are we here arguing today? The Senator from South Carolina and DOE should just go and proceed. The reason they do not is because the Senator from South Carolina knows all too well that his language is changing current law and that he needs that change if DOE wants to leave high-level waste in the ground.
The point is for all Americans to understand that nuclear waste in States such as Washington, Idaho, and South Carolina only have the authority to argue these issues about cleanup within the framework of a Federal statute. That Federal statute is the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
What the Senator from South Carolina is doing in the underlying bill is threatening the rights of States, including his own State, to protect itself from DOE as DOE reclassifies waste. It leaves our States at jeopardy. It leaves all States where there are nuclear facilities in jeopardy because of DOE's insistence that the nuclear waste policy definition of spent nuclear fuel does not have to meet the standard of high-level waste. It leaves all of these States with a debate with DOE that DOE can say this waste is no longer high level. We can transport it. We can do whatever we want with it. We can fill tanks with grout. It is a very dangerous precedent.
The Senator is getting rid of the Federal framework. No State has the ability to negotiate on its own a Federal cleanup standard. Imagine if the State of Michigan discussed with EPA this is what the clean air standard should be for the State of Michigan? What if Florida and the EPA decided what safe drinking water standards are for the State of Florida? We have never operated that way.
The Senator from South Carolina refuses to address that his State can only deal with leaving tank waste in the ground, which he is proposing we do, by changing the Federal standard. The Department of Defense authorization bill changes the definition of high-level waste. It is changing the Federal standard. It is then leaving those States subject to DOE's whim on how much ground waste and water pollution will be there in those tanks at Hanford, at Savannah River, and in Idaho.
The Senator talks about contaminated ground water. His ground water in Savannah River is already contaminated. The ground water in Washington State at Hanford is already contaminated. There are other parts of the country with high-level contaminated waste.
The question is, What are we going to do to hold DOE's feet to the fire to make sure they get this waste cleaned up? This body, for the last 3 years, has seen various changes at this administration level try to undermine current environmental standards and environmental law. The current environmental law of the day regarding nuclear waste is the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The Senator's language in the underlying bill threatens that language.
Washington State agreements, which have been fighting DOE to live up to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, will no longer be able to argue that effectively, nor will Idaho, unless we pass my amendment.
My amendment specifically says we are not changing the definition of high-level waste but the Department of Energy needs to have dollars appropriated, which this bill authorizes, for $350 million of cleanup, and the DOE must spend that money on cleanup. We actually crafted that language with Senator Levin with the help and support of Governor Kempthorne of Idaho. We put the Kempthorne language in our amendment. Why did we do that? Because we wanted to be clear with the Kempthorne language that we were not going to be held hostage; Idaho, Washington, and even Savannah River were not going to be blackmailed by DOE to saying, they only get the cleanup dollars if, in fact, they agree to a lesser standard which allows us to leave more pollution in the ground water in your State. We refused to agree to this policy and be held hostage by DOE.
The Senators from Idaho do not need any other language. They want their State protected on this issue. They want their dollars for cleanup protected. The Cantwell amendment protects the State of Idaho. I am sure that is what the response will be from the State of Idaho and the State of Washington and others as they look at this policy. It corrects onerous activities that happened when the Defense authorization bill moved through the Senate Armed Services Committee and marked up policy changes to environmental policy of which that committee does not have oversight.
My colleagues can say we have had lots of debate about cleanup and lots of budget discussions. I don't think anyone can seriously stand in the Senate and say the change in definition of hazardous nuclear waste is the jurisdiction of the Senate Armed Services Committee. It is not. The Parliamentarian has already ruled on that. That is the jurisdiction of the Energy Committee.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are ignoring the hard facts. This is not about individual States having agreement; it is about changing the Federal standard for nuclear waste cleanup.
This administration and DOE ought to be embarrassed. They are trying this sneaky process behind closed doors and putting language in that now we all have to come to the Senate and fight to take out.
What Member wants to vote against the Defense authorization bill that has this language in it? What does this language have to do with troops in Afghanistan or troops in Iraq? What does it have to do with giving men and women the support they deserve to fight for our country? It is creating a controversy around change to a Federal policy that has not been debated.
There is no Lindsey Graham bill or bill by any of my other colleagues that has the Graham language in it that was brought before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and debated. My colleagues are wrong on this.
Let's see what the rest of America is saying about this because I guarantee this debate will not end today. It is very important the third parties that have looked at this issue have validated exactly what my colleagues on this side of the aisle are saying about this issue.
In fact, the Savannah Morning News says:
It's good for the government to save billions of dollars and to clean up nuclear waste. But a money-saving plan that does a poor job of tidying up is no bargain.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune said:
Quicker and cheaper can be valid considerations . . . but only after the highest level of safety has been guaranteed. And those guarantees must satisfy national standards, not the terms of a side deal.
That is exactly what this is, a side deal between a State and an agency that has neglected its cleanup responsibilities for years. The court said they needed to move forward but not by changing the definition of high-level waste that they did not have, but move forward on the plans they have in place. This is a side deal.
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The Boston Globe said:
If the Senate isn't careful, it could vote this week to allow the Department of Energy to cover some of the nation's most hazardous nuclear waste with grout instead of treating it properly. . . . The Senate should strip the defense spending bill of this toxic measure.
The Oregonian, from another part of the country that is greatly impacted by this issue because of the Columbia River and the huge impact that river has, already with that plutonium leaked into the river, said:
It's remotely possible that [this] policy is worth debating, but this sneaky approach suggests the Department of Energy isn't interested in a public discussion of the issue.
What did the Seattle Times say? In our State, we have been battling DOE for years because they always want to take a shortcut. They always want to take a shortcut and say we can do it quicker. What are the Washington agreements about? The Washington agreements are about forcing DOE to live up to Federal cleanup standards. That is what the agreements are. In fact, they always try to get out of it. The Seattle Times wrote:
The Senate should slap down a sneaky ploy . . . that would give the Department of Energy the right to single-handedly change the rules about how it handles highly radioactive waste.
The Washington Post took a look at this situation and said:
. . . a situation in which states compete to reach private agreements with the Energy Department and then rush to put them into legislation is untenable.
What did the Atlanta Journal Constitution say? It is a State that is affected by the Savannah River which flows into their State. The Savannah River already has pollution problems with radionuclides affecting fish and affecting safe drinking water conditions. It said:
. . . words do matter, and some semantic contortions can be dangerous. Recent efforts by the U.S. Department of Energy to circumvent the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act by slipping through a linguistic wormhole are an outrageous case in point.
What about the Omaha-World Herald? They know a little bit about this issue. They have debated the nuclear waste issue. They said:
We hope Congress will listen to common-sense views . . . and yank this terrible idea back out of the bill. It's not merely wrongheaded; it would result in a hazard to the public well-being.
And there are newspapers in my State weighing in on this issue. The Tri-City Herald, which is in the heart of this cleanup effort at Hanford, the largest tank waste cleanup in the country, where we already have 1 million gallons of tank waste leaking in a plume that is an 80-square-mile area that is going to the Columbia River, said:
Senators considering [this issue] should ask themselves this: If reclassification really is such a great and worthy idea, why isn't the Energy Department making the argument in the light of day?
If they really thought reclassifying waste was such a great idea, why don't they put a bill before this legislative body saying so, driving it through the normal channels and the normal process of legislation? They know they do not have this authority. They tried by their own executive administrative order to do it, and the courts told them they did not have the ability to do it. But instead of coming through the proper channels with a bill and legislation, they have chosen, instead, to sneak language into the Defense authorization bill-probably one of the most unpatriotic things I can think to do.
These men and women gave a serious amount of their lives to fighting in World War II and the cold war by producing plutonium and giving us a tool to win in those areas. They did that in record time. Now they expect this country, just like businesses all across America, to clean up their waste. We expect the Federal Government to clean up their waste. We do not expect a short-end process where they say you can simply grout over nuclear radioactive waste and put sand and gravel on top of it and somehow stabilize the situation.
So the Tri-City Herald said Senators should ask themselves this: If reclassification is such a great idea, why don't they make the argument in the light of day?
What did the Idaho Statesman say? The Idaho Statesman said:
The Energy Department's shameful record on this issue-
Why would a paper like the Idaho Statesman say it is a "shameful record"? Because it is true. DOE fails to live up, time and time again, to the process of moving forward, and so States have had to enter into agreements that comply with Federal law-not circumvent Federal law, but comply with Federal law-and hold DOE's feet to the fire and say: DOE, you must meet the Federal standard and move forward. So the Idaho Statesman said:
The Energy Department's shameful record on this issue is even more troubling. Remember recent history . . . Suggesting there's no precedent-and no potential effect on Idaho-is politically naive.
That is from the Idaho Statesman.
What did the Bangor Daily News say? Well, the Bangor Daily News said:
The long-term implications of such an important change in waste-storage policy are too serious to give the issue a free ride in a spending bill.
So we have heard from over 20 newspapers across America. My colleague from New York submitted editorials from both the New York Times and the Buffalo News. I talked about the Minneapolis Star earlier and their comments on this issue.
Show me a newspaper in America that is saying this is a good policy. In the limited amount of time we have had to get this debate in front of the public, the public has basically, in these editorials and letters to the editors, raised serious questions about this policy, serious questions about why the Senate would be moving forward on this issue.
As my colleague, the senior Senator from Washington, mentioned earlier, the House of Representatives, when posed with this question, figured it out and said: Listen, if this is such a good idea, let's have a study. Let's have a study and analysis of this issue and see exactly what people can come up with as far as science. Well, that is what is in the House version of this legislation-a study-because my colleagues over there understood that this was a change to Federal policy.
So what about the underlying effects of this legislation if the Cantwell amendment is not adopted? The Cantwell amendment says two things: We are not changing the definition of what is high-level waste and the definition of spent nuclear fuel. We are leaving that the same. But we are giving the authorization and requiring that DOE spend $350 million on cleanup in Washington, in Savannah River, and in Idaho. So we are pushing them ahead. So there is no holdup on cleanup, no issue. DOE, get back to your job of taking the waste out of the tanks and putting it into a glassification and storage process. Why are we spending billions of dollars on a glassification process-that is, the process of taking this spent fuel and turning it into glass logs and moving it into storage-if we are going to leave so much of it in the ground in these tanks? Why would we be spending so much money on it?
As my colleagues are trying to paint a picture that somehow our language does not take care of the blackmail clause, we are simply not-in Washington or in Idaho-going to be blackmailed by DOE into sneaking in language or having our funds held up. As my colleague from Washington said, we have successfully, as a caucus, fought these efforts in the past and have not been peeled off by DOE, that likes to play a switch-and-run game, just because OMB or somebody says we don't have the money in the budget to do the cleanup.
Well, nuclear waste cleanup costs money. The plume in our State already has 1 million gallons of ground water leakage; I will point out to my colleagues, these tanks started leaking years ago. This is not a recent phenomenon. So the fact that these tanks were built, and that DOE knew they were leaking. We all became aware of this; I know this body changes, you have turnover in membership, but my colleagues knew these tanks were leaking. The thing we should have done is continued to push DOE, just as Washington has, just as Idaho has, and just as Savannah River has in legal documents.
I have, again, great respect for the junior Senator of South Carolina, but he is wrong as it relates to his State's history. His State has said, on numerous occasions, that DOE is wrong on this issue. Now, I get that they have an advocate in the Senate today to make a different point for them, but why do they spend the taxpayers' money in South Carolina arguing in a Federal court case that DOE was wrong to try to change this policy and send letters to Spencer Abraham, the Secretary of Energy, saying he was dead wrong on this policy? Why did they spend the money of the taxpayers in South Carolina fighting this battle, along with Washington and along with Idaho, if they did not believe in it?
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I know. Because the State of South Carolina does believe that Federal cleanup policy should be preserved, that the States can only be protected by having a Federal statute, that negotiating cleanup policy standards is not the prerogative of individual States. It is something that is designated under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. If that law is to be changed, then it ought to be done in the broad daylight of this body and this organization.
So what are we left with today? I think some people at home, who may have been watching this debate, are asking themselves this question. I hope the Cantwell amendment is adopted because it will remove this debate from this bill that we need to move forward with to protect our troops, to continue to give them the resources they need, and move the nuclear waste debate off of something that is so important for us to get done.
But if the Cantwell amendment is not adopted, what we will leave the people with is legislation that basically says the Department of Energy can grout these tanks and can leave this waste in the ground. I do not want safe drinking water affected. I do not want ground water contamination. I want the Senate to do its job and uphold the Federal standard.
BREAK IN TEXT
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the RECORD a letter from the National Congress of American Indians. And I commend to my colleagues the 1995 Idaho settlement agreement and the Washington Tri-Party Agreement.