Press Releases

U.S. Congressman Rick W. Allen (R-Ga-12) released the following statement after the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act, by a vote of 340-72. This legislation would affect the spent nuclear fuel currently sitting at Plants Hatch and Vogtle, both located in Georgia’s 12^th Congressional District. As the Representative for Georgia-12, home to every nuclear reactor in the state of Georgia, Congressman Allen has been a strong advocate for addressing the spent nuclear fuel that currently sits idle in 121 communities across the nation and spoke on the House floor in support of this legislation.

“Right here in Georgia’s 12^th District, we have thousands of spent fuel rods being held in spent fuel pools and dry cask storage containers on site at Plants Hatch and Vogtle. With the construction of two new nuclear reactors set to come online within the next few years at Plant Vogtle, the amount of spent fuel will increase exponentially. Not having a permanent geological repository, like Yucca Mountain, breaks the promise the federal government made back in 1982 to permanently dispose of used fuel and forces our communities to house and store nuclear waste—even though ratepayers have paid more than $40 billion to the Department of Energy for this very purpose! H.R. 3053 implements a strategy to relocate this material off-site and provides practical reforms to our nation’s nuclear waste management policy, ensuring that the federal government fulfills its legal obligation to dispose of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste. This bill passed in an overwhelming bipartisan fashion—the Senate should take notice and pass this bill straightaway.”

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