S6232 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 8, 1995

litigation. Both consumers and manufacturers end up losers. Consumers lose

because they receive inadequate compensation. Some estimates have shown

that our tort system consumes 57 cents

of every $1 awarded in lawsuits.

In addition, consumers wait unreasonable amounts of time before they

receive compensation, and often pay

outrageous fees to their attorneys.

Manufacturers lose because liability

concerns stifle research and development.

A recent survey showed that because

of fear of litigation, 47 percent of companies had withdrawn products from

the market; 25 percent had discontinued some kind of research; and 8

percent actually had laid off workers.

In fact in 1 year alone, Texas lost

79,000 jobs due to the cost of the liability system.

Each year there are more than 70,000

product liability lawsuits filed in the

United States—yet Great Britain only

has an average of 200.

Now, this is only one of the reasons

liability insurance costs are 20 times

higher in the United States than in Europe.

As a result of this well-known liability gold-rush, the United States as a

nation loses as well.

According to the Product Liability

Coordinating Committee, the cost of

product liability ranges from $80 to

$120 billion per year.

These costs are passed directly on to

you and me as consumers. Appropriately, this is known as the tort tax.

For example, manufacturers of football helmets add $100 to the cost of a

$200 helmet. Auto manufacturers add

$500 to the price of a new car, and the

markers of a $100 stepladder will add

another $20 to its cost, just to cover potential liability.

I know many of my colleagues have

mentioned this, but I want to reiterate

the fact that right here in Washington,

DC, the Girl Scout Council must sell

87,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies each

year just to cover the cost of their liability insurance.

In my own State of Minnesota, Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III,

the son of Minnesota’s great U.S. Senator, recently testified before the State

legislature that his office spent $340,000

in 1994 defending Minnesota against

frivolous lawsuits. Attorney General

Humphrey offered a top-10 list of lawsuits from Minnesota inmates. These

are just a few of the ridiculous claims

that prisoners have filed:

One prisoner claimed he had a constitutional right to a computer in his

jail cell. One claimed that the President gave him a fungus.

Another prisoner claimed underwear

was not provided, and when it was provided, it was so tight that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

If you think these lawsuits are laughable, try Mr. Humphrey’s No. 1 frivolous lawsuit: One prisoner claimed that

his primary reason for filing a lawsuit

was ‘‘pure delight in spending taxpayers’ money.’’ I understand that

suits like these may be rare. However,

they typify the problems with our current system.

The Gorton-Rockefeller Product Liability Fairness Act will address many

of the problems faced by well-intentioned, honest manufacturers.

This legislation will establish alternative dispute resolution, extend protection to product sellers, provide an

absolute defense for injuries received

when the plaintiff was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and prevent

automobile rental companies from

being held liable for damages caused by

the renters of its cars when the company is not at fault.

In addition, the Gorton-Rockefeller

bill will provide much-needed relief to

suppliers of biomaterials. Currently,

raw material suppliers who have no direct role in the raw material’s ultimate

use as a biomaterial share extraordinary and irrational liability risk

with device manufacturers.

Companies such as DuPont, Dow

Chemical, and Dow Corning have decided to stop supplying manufacturers

of medical devices with raw materials

for fear of lawsuits. This legislation is

progress, and is the first step in the

right direction.

While I am encouraged by the hard

work of the Senators from Washington

State and West Virginia, I am concerned that we may be opening up a

new can of worms, when this legislation is signed into law.

While it will offer protection for

product manufacturers, my fear is that

it will leave the service industry as the

only remaining deep pocket.

I believe the Senate should continue

moving forward to reform our liability

system, making sure that individuals

who deserve compensation are made

whole and that individuals who are not

at fault are not held liable for someone

else’s actions.

Mr. President, we should take this

historic opportunity today to approve

the Product Liability Fairness Act,

and in doing so ensure that our liability system is fair to all parties involved, not just those who are looking

for their golden nugget in the liability

gold-rush.

EXTENSION OF MORNING

fBUSINESS

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I ask

unanimous consent that morning business be extended until the hour of 12:10.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Hearing no objection, so ordered.

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I would

NEI ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN

flike to bring to the attention of my

colleagues an advertisement currently

getting wide circulation by the nuclear

power industry.

This advertisement touts the virtues

of legislation introduced for the nuclear power industry to address the industry’s nuclear waste problem.

As many of my colleagues are aware,

the industry’s solution to its waste

problem has, for a number of years,

been very simple: ship the waste to Nevada.

Since 1982, Nevada has been the target of the nuclear powder industry’s efforts to move its toxic high-level waste

away from reactor sites.

Under current law, Yucca Mountain,

90 miles north of Las Vegas, is being

studied, supposedly to determine its

suitability as a site for a permanent

geologic repository.

The repository program has had immense problems.

With $4.5 billion spent to date on the

program, Yucca Mountain is no closer

to accepting the nuclear power industry’s waste than it was 13 years ago,

when Congress passed the first Nuclear

Waste Policy Act.

I am not alone in my opinion that a

repository will never be built at Yucca

Mountain.

The nuclear power industry is also

frustrated.

In a curious juxtaposition from the

Nevada perspective, the industry

thinks the DOE is being too careful,

paying too much attention to environmental concerns, and simply not moving fast enough.

While the nuclear power industry

still maintains that Nevada is perfectly

suitable to host their repository, it has

come to the conclusion that Yucca

Mountain will never solve its highlevel waste problem.

The nuclear power industry has a

new solution, and of course, Nevada is

once again the victim.

The nuclear power industry’s new

strategy is to designate Nevada as the

site for its interim storage, beginning

in 1998.

While the ‘‘interim’’ designation is

supposed to imply a temporary facility,

the nuclear power industry defines ‘‘interim’’ as 100 years, subject to renewal.

The motive is patently transparent:

ship high level nuclear waste to Nevada

as soon as possible, without any regard

for the health and safety of Nevadans,

and then forget about it.

The type of public relations campaign being mounted here is nothing

new.

While we in Nevada have long experience with such campaigns by the nuclear power industry and its hired

flacks, I have to admit that this latest

advertisement is a masterpiece of deception and misinformation.

The headline alone reveals the deceptiveness of the advertisement.

‘‘There are 109 good reasons to store

nuclear waste in 1 place’’ proclaims the

nuclear industry’s advertisement.

The headline appeals to the logic of

the reader—of course, the reader

thinks, 1 site is better than 109.

The problem is, of course, that the

advertisement does not tell the true

story.
May 8, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6233

Unless the nuclear power industry

has some well kept secret plan to shut

down and decommission every reactor

at each of these 109 reactor sites, by

my count creation of a new, central

site for waste storage makes 110 sites,

not 1.

How the nuclear power industry gets

down to one site, when its reactors are

still running, and waste is still stored

in pools on site, is beyond me.

The advertisement also ignores one

of the key problems with a central

high-level waste facility—the transportation of the toxic waste from the 109

reactor sites to the central facility.

The nuclear power industry, in its

obsession to dispose of its waste as

quickly as possible, is proposing to create thousands of rolling interim storage facilities, on trucks, and rail cars,

in 43 States across the Nation.

The nuclear power industry’s map

shows the location of the 109 reactor

sites, but not the proposed location for

the central storage facility.

There is a good reason for this oversight—the industry’s target for a

central storage facility is not central

at all.

Not even close.

Looking at the map, it could not be

clearer—only 15 of the 109 sites identified are west of the Missouri River.

This second chart shows the map

that the nuclear power industry, if it

was being honest, should have run in

their advertisement.

This map shows the location of the

current reactor sites, the proposed location for their central storage facility, and the likely routes through 43

States for the thousands of shipments

necessary to move the high-level waste

from around the Nation to Nevada.

It is obvious to even the casual observer that the nuclear power industry’s interim storage proposal could result in an unprecedented level of shipments of extremely toxic, highly dangerous radioactive materials.

Every Member of the Senate should

take a careful look at this map.

Nothing could make clearer the true

scope of what the nuclear power industry is proposing.

Over the years, as I have fought the

industry and the DOE in their efforts

to open a repository in Nevada, I have

often found my colleagues, both here in

the Senate and among the Nation’s

Governors in my previous position,

sympathetic to Nevada’s cause.

Many in the Senate sympathize with

the outrageous abrogation of State’s

rights.

Others understand the potential environmental risks associated with opening a high-level nuclear waste dump 90

miles from the fastest growing metropolitan area in the United States—a

metropolitan area with nearly 1 million residents.

Still others have understood the potentially grave economic damages that

could result from the transport and

storage of high-level nuclear waste so

close to the premier tourist destination

in the United States.

Unfortunately, however, these expressions of sympathy have not often

translated into action.

For too long, the commercial nuclear

waste problem has been identified as a

solely Nevada issue.

The general attitude has been we feel

badly for Nevada—but if it is not Nevada, who would be the nuclear power

industry’s next target?

This map should make clear that the

nuclear power industry’s refusal to accept responsibility for the storage of

its own waste will affect every citizen

of every State along the routes the industry will use to move the waste.

Even those from the few States that

are not targets of the nuclear power industry should be concerned. I do not

know how many of anyone’s constituents are anxious to share the road with

a truck moving high-level nuclear

waste.

Once the word is out to these affected

communities, no one will be able to

continue to dismiss the issue as simply

a Nevada problem.

In the absence of a permanent solution to the nuclear waste problem,

there is simply no reason to move nuclear waste away from the reactor

sites.

The only crisis facing the nuclear

power industry is a public relations crisis, not a scientific one.

The NRC has licensed technology to

store waste in dry casks, on site, for

the next several decades.

Some utilities, of necessity, have

taken advantage of this technology.

Most refuse to do so.

Why are utilities so adverse to accepting the responsibility for their own

waste? The answer could not be simpler.

Recognizing the political and public

relations nightmare of seeking permission to increase storage for high-level

waste on site, utilities are seeking an

outside solution.

Nevada, a State with no reactors and

about as far as you can get from a geographically central location, has been

chosen as the target.

Let me return for a moment to the

advertisement.

I have not even touched on the misinformation provided by the text.

The ad generally relies on the tried

and true tactic of the nuclear power industry to create the impression of impending doom if its demands for relief

are not met immediately.

Congress, then, is pressured to act

quickly, irrespective of the wishes, or

the health and safety, of Nevadans, or

anyone else.

This was true in 1980, when the industry claimed that reactors across the

Nation would soon shut down if they

could not get what was then called

away-from-reactor storage by 1983.

No away-from-reactor storage was

ever built, and no reactor has ever shut

down from lack of storage.

There simply was no crisis in 1980—

and there is no crisis now.

It is all an expensive, dangerous ruse.

I urge my colleagues to think carefully before falling for this, and other,

deceptive misinformation campaigns

by the nuclear power industry and its

advocates.

Mr. BINGAMAN addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Shelby). The Senator from New Mexico.

The Chair informs the Senator from

New Mexico that at 12:10 morning business is set to expire unless it is extended.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask

unanimous consent that morning business be extended for up to 15 minutes,

until I conclude my statement.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

fCUBA

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I

first want to say a few words about our

policy toward a neighboring country,

Cuba.

The United States objectives in Cuba

are not in dispute. Our primary objective is to move Cuba to a more democratic form of government and to a

government with a greater respect for

human rights. Also, of course, we want

to see the lives of the Cuban people improve economically, and we want to see

our historically close ties with this island neighbor restored.

First, let us review some of the facts

that led us to the present circumstances we find ourselves in. Fidel

Castro came to power in Cuba some 34

years ago, when I was still in high

school and before several Members of

this Congress were even born. He

quickly established an authoritarian

and anti-United States regime. He declared himself a Marxist-Leninist in

December 1961. Early in 1961, the United States broke diplomatic relations

with Cuba.

A year later, in February 1962, we imposed a comprehensive trade embargo.

The reasons cited for that were three.

First, Castro’s expropriation without

compensation, much property owned

by U.S. citizens, in excess of $1 billion.

Second, the Castro regime’s obvious

efforts to export revolution to other

parts of the world.

And, third, the increasingly close ties

that existed then between Castro’s

Government and the Soviet Union.

That was 33 years ago. During the

past 33 years, we have maintained the

trade embargo in place. In April 1961,

we tried unsuccessfully in the Bay of

Pigs to have Castro overthrown militarily. We began in 1985 to use Radio

Martı ́ to undermine Cuban support for

Fidel Castro, and in the Bush administration just a few years ago we added

TV Martı ́ to the mix, as well.

In 1992, we passed the Cuban Democracy Act in an effort to tighten our

trade sanctions. This year, we are

being urged by some in this body to

pass a new and tough measure entitled