Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. KEATING. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank Congressman Shimkus for his support of this amendment. I would also like to thank Congressman Tonko as well, and express my support for the underlying bill, which will, among many other things, prioritize decommissioned nuclear plants for removal of spent waste.

The hard work to come to this stage has been important, and we are finally moving forward.

In 2015, news broke that the nuclear plant in my district would be decommissioned in 2019. Unfortunately, this plant has also been in the news quite a bit because of significant safety concerns. So the communities back home are intimately aware of the safety and security risks to local neighborhoods and plant employees, and local officials and stakeholders have worked hard to hold plant operators accountable to prepare for all the risks presented, and to demand a plan for what happens after the plant is decommissioned so that the families and the businesses in my district are not left high and dry.

I offered a number of amendments to H.R. 3035, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act. They included efforts to strengthen local stakeholder engagement, to support funding for communities where spent nuclear fuel is awaiting transfer, to ensure the safe storage of spent nuclear fuel at decommissioned or soon-to-be decommissioned plants. And I offered these amendments because of the safety of the communities that are affected by nuclear plants and the nuclear storage sites, the importance of that being recognized.

And while some of these ideas weren't included in the particular bill, the amendment I offer now is fundamental to making sure that they will be ultimately addressed.

Congress created the Nuclear Waste Fund to fund a solution to civilian nuclear waste that would provide for safe disposal in a permanent repository. These funds came from funds paid by ratepayers and generated by tens of billions of dollars, $31 billion as of 2014, to support a solution for dealing with nuclear waste in a safe and secure manner.

And in the issuance of what is happening with this fund, the administration ceased making an easy-to-read summary to be part of that. The American people deserve to know just how this fund is being managed, and that any expenditure is actually necessary or justified and publicly reported and easily digested by local officials and the public as a whole.

For this, transparency really is key. We should be making it as easy as possible for the public and the officials that oversee this fund, and my amendment does just that by requiring a clear, plain English summary to accompany annual reporting on the Nuclear Waste Fund's financial status.

The information about the fund should not be only accessible to those who can understand the technical information contained in the full report. When communities like mine are working as hard as they can possibly work under the circumstances to make sure that they keep families safe, we should be making every possible tool available to them to achieve this goal.

Transparency around the fund created by ratepayers and intended to support a permanent solution to the safety risks they face from nuclear waste is only one piece of that, but an important piece.

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Mr. KEATING. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko), who has worked tirelessly on this issue as well and with a strong spirit of bipartisan cooperation on this bill.

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Mr. KEATING. Mr. Chairman, once again, I want to thank everyone who has worked so hard: Mr. Shimkus, Mr. Tonko, and all of the people who are finally moving this ahead. It is a very important issue in terms of our energy. It is very important in terms of safety of our communities. We have finally got the ball rolling, so again, I thank them for their hard work.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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