Jay Inslee: Washington's 1st Congressional District

Issues

Environment

U.S. House of Representatives Passes Inslee Motion:
"Do Not Weaken the Definition of High-Level Radioactive Waste"

2 October 2003

The House of Representatives debated and voted to pass Inslee’s motion to tell House members of the Energy Conference Committee not to allow any changes to the definition of high-level radioactive waste by a unanimous voice vote.Inslee's action was a “motion to instruct” the members of the Energy Conference Committee to stay within the scope of the conference with regard to the legal definition of "high-level radioactive waste."

“The one message we hope that comes out of today is that, when you have one hundred thousand gallons of such lethal material, our constituents, on a bipartisan, bicoastal basis want to make sure it gets cleaned up in reality rather than just in rhetoric,” said Inslee. “I am very appreciative of my colleagues’ efforts to work with the DOE and the states to try to hammer out a solution.”

Background:

As you may know, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate have each passed energy bills. The House and Senate bills are now before the Energy Conference Committee, which will work out the differences between the two bills, draft a compromise version of the bill, and send it back to the House and Senate for final passage.

The U.S. Department of Energy has asked members of the Energy Conference Committee to change the definition of high-level radioactive waste in the final version of the energy bill. Neither the House nor the Senate supported such a change in their energy bills, and no hearings have taken place on whether to change the definition of high-level radioactive waste. Any insertion of a controversial definition change at this point would be an effort to change public policy under-the-cover-of-night, because neither the House nor the Senate would have a chance to debate this change before voting on whether to pass the energy bill.

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) is opposed to the Department of Energy's efforts to change the definition of high-level radioactive waste, because the change would cause waste that is currently considered "high-level waste" to instead be considered "low-level waste." High-level waste at Hanford must be vitrified and sent to Yucca Mountain in Nevada for storage, but low-level waste may be kept in the ground at Hanford indefinitely. If the Department of Energy’s changes are adopted by the Energy Conference Committee, the federal government could decide to reclassify some of Hanford’s high-level waste, and leave it in the ground.

Attorneys General from four states, including Washington, have called the Department of Energy’s proposal “wholly unnecessary.” U.S. Sen. Patty Murray has been leading the efforts in the Senate to stop efforts to change the definition of high-level radioactive waste.