EXTENSIONS of REMARKS February .7, 1980

2462 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS February .7, 1980 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS NUCLEAR . WASTE ISSUES ·· NEED Interagency Review Group on Nuclear Department's Idaho National Engi RESOLUTION-ARTICLE RE- Waste Management. neering Laboratory: VIEWS HISTORY AND OPTIONS Specifically, the Commission would While meeting· Department of· Energy require the Dep~rtment of Energy to guidelines, • • • violates existing and pro HON. JENNINGS RANDOLPH investigate a minimum of three sites posed Environmental Protection Agency In representing a minimum of two geo jection regulations as well as State regula· OF WEST VIRGINIA logic media. However, the Commission tlons. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES fully expects the Department to Independent regulation of all De Thursda.y, February 7, 1980 submit a wider range of alternatives partment of Energy nuclear waste ac e Mr. RANDOLPH. Mr. President, I than the minimum suggested. Further, tivities is consistent with two prece call to the attention of the Senate a the Department would be required to dents estabished by the Congress in thoughtful article, "Radioactive analyze the suitability of a· variety of 1974 and 1975. First, in dividing up the Waste, Nuclear Energy's Dilemma," waste forms to be used in disposal. functions of the Atomic Energy Com which appeared in the fall 1979 issue We must be confident that our mission and the Joint Committee on of Amicus, published by the Natural knowledge permits us to determine Atomic Energy Commission, we ac Resources Defense Council. · The whether permanent disposal of high knowledge in the .nuclear context that author, Terry Lash, provides a . rea level waste presents a socially accept the responsibility for protecting the soned discussion of the nature of nu able risk. If it does, we must be satis public health and safety must reside clear waste and of the woefully inad fied that our knowledge permits us to in an entity sepa:r;ate from the organi equate attempts of industry and Gov determine the combination of geologic zation charged with promotional and ernment to dispose of it. Seen in light medium and waste form which will programmatic responsibilities. Second, of the record developed at the exten best protect the public health and in extending Nuclear Regulatory Com sive hearings on nuclear waste of the safety. We are currently unable to mission authority over long-term stor Subcommittee on Nuclear Regulation, answer these questions. age facilitles for high-level nuclear chaired by my able colleague Senator Even when and if our expertise waste generated by defense production HART, this article enunciates a number· allows for these determinations, there activities, we_affirmed that independ of principles against which pending wn1 be little public confidence in the ent regulation of management of de legislation on this subject should be nuclear waste management program fense generated waste can be accom measured. unless there is genuine ·public involve plished in a manner consistent with Perhaps most disturbing in Lash's ment. This involvement must extend not only to the procedures for licens national security objectives. account is the pattern of repeated The Senate must acknowledge in the shifts in policy on the desired means ing a facility, but also to the ultimate of disposal, while the fundamental· question of whether a State wants context of waste management, as it question of whether safe, permanent such a facility located within its bor did in the Price Anderson amendments disposal of the most toxic forms of nu ders. This has been a matter of legiti of 1975 respecting tort liability for a clear waste is possible remains unre mate concern to the States·for almost nuclear accident,. that the nuclear fuel solved. · 20 years. · cycle represents an inherently danger That there is no disposal capacity It is true that there'is also a national ous technology, The principal objec for high-level waste available more interest to consider. Past policy defi tive of nuclear waste management must be to prote~t the public and the than 25 years after commercial gen ciencies have left us with a problem of 8 eration of this. waste began is a very n'ational proportions. Disposing of the environment, not merely to expedi persuasive argument for the creation existing volume of nuclear waste is a tiously eliminate an impediment to of an action-forcing mechanism. Legis national undertaking. The very exist the future growth of .commercial nu lation that ·would delay further the ence of this accumulation represents a ·clear power. final resolution of this national prob major Federal interest in proceeding According to the Government Ac lem by authorizing an expensive pro with permanent disposal, provided it counting Office, the Federal Govern gram of long-term storage of civilian does not pose an unacceptable risk. ment has expended $12.1 billion high-level waste, would be counterpro- This interest must be ·acknowledged in through 1978 in subsidies to the nu ductive. · defining the State role. clear industry. This estimate is exclusive In devising a mechanism to speed The article documents the formida of the subsidie$ conferred by Federal action on permanent disposal, howev ble difficulties in waste management programs to stimulate the mining of er, we must be careful to allow for de encountered by· the Atomic Energy domestic uranium and to indemnify liberate .consideration· of the serious Commission and its successor, the De and limit the liability of utilities sup technological questions and potential partment of .Energy. There·-can be pliers and contractors in the event of long-term impacts. Failure to do ·so little doubt this history requires an in an accident at a nuclear powerplant. would undermine public confidence in dependent and vigorous regulatory This last program of indemnification the entire disposal program. On the program that is consistent with other and liability limitation, established by vital question of nuclear waste disp6s· national objectives. the Price-Anderson Act, was essential ::\.1, we must assure the sort of reasoned These difficulties are not merely of for the very existence of the nuclear decisionmaking so often lacking in the historical interest. A report of the industry. formulation of Federal policy on nu Inspector General's Office of the De Despite such an enormous invest clear power in the past. partment of Energy released on Janu ment, this Nation is today faced with a Central to such a decisionmaking ary 22, concludes that important man Three Mile Island accident on the one process is alternatives analysis. 'The agement policies and practices at the hand, and an entirely unresolved nu Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Department's Hanford nuclear waste clear waste situation on the other. proposed regulations published in the reservation are in need of complete This situation suggests that we must Federal Register of December 6, 1979, overhaul. Further, a State· task force now decide whether the Federal Gov employed an alternatives approach to appointed by Idaho Gov. John Evaris ernlnent should continue to promote the geologic disposal of high-level nu concluded on December 13, of last the commercial nuclear fuel cycle, or clear waste;· this is consistent with the year, that low-level w~te injection soould instead assume a posture of recommendations of the President's into the Snake Plain aquifer at the greater neutrality. e This "bullet" symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by the Member 'on the floor. February 7, 1980 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS 2463 Mr. President, I commend this arti The build-up of new non-fissionable atoms trig, theft of radioactive materials, flooding cle to the- attention, of my colleagues and the depletion of uranium-235 makes of trenches containing radioactive wastes, and ask that it be printed in the sustalninc a chain reaction difficult in a nu and unellpected migration of wastes away clear power reactor. Ther~fore, e~h year, !rom trenches. The current situation is suf RECORD. about 30 percent of th~ fuel In a nuclear ficiently bad that the federal government The article follows: power reactOI' Is removed and replaced wiih may resume responsibility .for the burial of RADIOACTIVE W ASTS-NUCLEAR ENERGY'S fresh fuel. Tile removed fuel is said to· be commerCial low-level wastes as well as its . DILEMMA sPent. own wastes. In c011trast, In a reactor operated to pro Despite the ongoing problems with dispos Nowadays the unresolved problem of ra duce weapons srade plutonlurn-plutoniu~ ing of uranfum tailings and low-level wastes, dioactive waste disposal is often mentioned that has a hi&h percentace. of the 239 iso however, the greatest coricem is about the as the Achilles' heel of nuclear power. With tope-the fuel ·is withdrawn before a lot of high-level wastes. Currently, the inventory increasing frequency the unknowns and un uranium-235 fissioDS. Thus. the concentra of spent fuel is butlding up in water-cooled certainties about geologic disposal of high tfmi of· fission products and by-products in pcM')ls connected to nuclear power plants. level wastes are emphasized in official spent fuel from power· reactors is much Spa~e for storing more spent fuel ia running reports. Tbe noo.-t.echnologieal proble~. higher than in the fuel removed from the out, potentially jeopardizing operation of furthermore. seem no closer to. resolution so-called production reactors. nuclear power plants during the 1980s and today than in earlier years. This situation In the past, both types of used fuel were beyond.· The storage problem oceurs prinei contrasts sharply- with the optimism of 20 reprocessed in order to separate the unfls pally because the federal government did years age that technieaJ solutions existed. sioned plutOntum from all of the other not plan adequately for the backend of the The lack of subStantial progre~ ~ be at· atoms.

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