the subcommittee on energy and the environment will come to order today the subcommittee will consider h r five fifteen the radioactive import deterrence acts sponsored by representatives of gordon and and kerry pursuant to committee rule nine the chairman and ranking member will have five minutes each for opening statements and any other subcommittee members who wish to make an opening statement will have three minutes chair will recognize himself for an opening statement today the subcommittee will mark up h r five fifteen the radioactive import deterrence act a bipartisan bill introduced by congressm gordon matheson and terry this important legislation will ban the import of low level radioactive waste into the united states this is a bipartisan bill co sponsored by eighty house members including twenty democrats and four republican members of both either the subcommittee of the full energy and commerce committee five fifteen was drafted in response to an attempt to bring twenty thousand ton of italian low level nuclear waste into the united states to be processed in tennessee and disposed of in utah italy wants to ship their waste here because they have no disposal capabilities there and italy is by no means the only country in this position in fact no other nuclear waste producing country in the world allows the importation and disposal of foreign nuclear waste why should the united states take italian nuclear waste if they won't take ours i think the answer is simple we on the subcommittee will not allow the united states to be the world's nuclear dumping ground five fifteen will preserve existing u s disposal sites for our own domestic low level nuclear waste today we have a few sites in the country which dispose of our low level waste for the moment this is adequate however it is extremely difficult  disposal sites it is only practical that we can we manage existing domestic low level nuclear waste capacity we have to ensure that we do not face a crisis in the future this will be even more critical if new nuclear reactors are built in this country a chap by fifteen will maintain the integrity of the low level waste compact system and protect the states from being forced to accept foreign nuclear waste this bill would preserve existing disposal sites for our own domestic low level ways when we established a low level waste compact system the congress did not intend for the compact to handle foreign waste we empowered the states to establish sites for common use within the various regions and specifically allowed them to exclude waste from outside those regions if we fail to protect low level waste compaq systems which were supposed to be domestic  disposal sites could be turned into a global nuclear waste dump if that occurs we would end up in a position where many states are unable or unwilling to participate in these tom packs at all leaving domestic companies with nowhere to go to dispose of their radioactive waste that would not be a good development for the nuclear industry for the nation i now turn and recognize my good friend the ranking member of the subcommittee the gentleman from michigan mr upton well thank you mr chairman and before i begin my stay the night that i would like to submit for the record a letter from the u s nuclear infrastructure council without objection being and i want to just take a moment to read one paragraph from their letter that says this in the council's view this legislation is unnecessary unsound and myopic policy it overrides the current regulatory structure which has ensured safe transport processing and disposal of nuclear materials over five decades in the united states and facilitated a fair hearing on the merits of any proposed importation of low level radioactive waste on a case by case basis although this legislation seeks to limit its probations to importation of low level radioactive waste it has presidential  presidential potential to have counterproductive implications in a number of the rain is important to ongoing and future nuclear generation given the nature of nuclear commerce and fuel cycle management the legislation will clearly have an adverse impact on jobs on work related to u s companies and in nuclear related environmental management and put the u s companies at a competitive disadvantage with respect to their foreign competitors and quote i am opposed to the legislation that we are marking up today the issue of waste disposal in nuclear power plants are in fact directly related and i see this bill as anti nuclear power and the bill is in essence a political nimby issue well i do have great respect for my friends that support this legislation i am concerned that it will be used by the opponents of nuclear power to delay new plants from coming online and cause further roadblocks the recycling and safe disposal of spent fuel and low level waste despite what the rivulets of this legislation may claim this is not about importing low level waste from italy which happens to be identical to the domestic waste safely being processed and disposed of today as we heard from g a o in the n r c there is no capacity issue energy solutions even agreed to self limit the amount of foreign waste it will import but i view this as a camel's no this legislation is the camel's nose under the tent this is about shutting down all of our domestic processing capabilities it is imperative that clean safe nuclear power is at the forefront as we seek to solidify our nation's energy supply and foster a new era of energy independence and as applications for nearly thirty new nuclear plants are expected over the next couple years we are on our way to feeling our commitment to save clean nuclear power not only will our environment be better for our national security will be bolstered millions of households will be powered by clean zero emission nuclear powered our nation's economy will be powered by nuclear as well nuclear energy is the proper course and we'll all be better for it the us is on the cost of a nuclear renaissance that will create countless jobs at a time when our nation endures near double digit unemployment these new plants will also boost our supply of clean and green power but without restoring some sanity to our nation's nuclear today's markup i think all of us understand the significance of disposing nuclear waste as we continue to examine expanding nuclear power use at present federal regulators including the waves specifically respond to a utah company's plan to import up to twenty thousand tons of low level radioactive waste from italy nuclear power program to the port of charleston south carolina or new orleans radioactive waste disposal site its request represents a large amount of low level radioactive waste the n r c has ever been asked to allow into the united states the agency also indicated a recent hearing by the subcommittee od thank you very much mr chairman and for having this markup today i was an original co sponsor of this legislation and since that time i have reflected more now the u s district court ruled in favor of the company that wants to import the opposition has appealed to the federal court of appeals and that is still undecided and then  fourth reason is that when the witness testified before the committee on this legislation they indicated that they had not identified any capacity with regard to class a waste disposal and since that was one of my original concerns that sort of changed my position right now but i did intend to offer an amendment today that i think would address some concerns of a lot of people on this issue that there are questions about the level of capacity because these are licensed often in this country and we talk about periods of twenty or thirty years that's really not a long time and in the context of the thirty or so new nuclear power plant how foreign radioactive waste was even considered as our policies and said in this country over the last few decades and what it appears to most of us is it was never considered because no one ever thought we'd be importing rid of waste in foreign countries i want to make sure though to address the one issue of whether or not this is an assault on nuclear power i'm not here to speak for my colleagues but since mr gordon is not on the subcommittee i think people know that mr gordon and myself are very aggressive in promoting nuclear power in this country and where the lead sponsors of this bill with mr kerry so i can assure people that this is not some broad based assault on the development of a nuclear power industry in this country what it is is it's an effort to put the united states in speak on the manager's amendment the manager's amendment in the nature of a substitute offering to h r five fifteen is very simple and only makes one technical change to the bill as introduced this amendment changes the chapter of the atomic energy act which will be amended by h r five fifteen from chapter eight by product material to chapter nineteen miscellaneous this change which will not alter the substance of the bill whatsoever was recommended to us by the nuclear regulatory commission and we were happy to accept it does any other member seek recognition to speak on the managers and the