Contact your U.S. Representative ASAP! Oppose the Mobile Chernobyl U.S. House bill before the full House Energy & Commerce Committee
Last week, U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), succeeded in rushing his “Screw Nevada” Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump legislation through the Environment and Economy Subcommittee he chairs. Now the bill moves on to the full U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee. Full committee markup is currently expected to take place Wed., June 28th.
If passed there, it would then move on to the full House floor for consideration. If ultimately passed into law, H.R.3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017, would launch unprecedented thousands of truck, train, and/or barge shipments of irradiated nuclear fuel, through 45 states, bound for Nevada. These shipments would pass through the heart of many major cities. They would pass through 370 of the 435 congressional districts in the U.S.!
Each shipment represents a potential Mobile Chernobyl, Floating Fukushima, or Dirty Bomb on Wheels risk, whether due to severe accident or intentional attack. Even “routine” or “incident-free” shipments have been called “Mobile X-ray machines that can’t be turned off,” given the hazardous gamma radiation they would emit, and expose persons to, who get too close (as by living along the shipping route, getting stuck next to a shipment in traffic, etc.).
Please take action and contact your U.S. Representative via the Capitol Switchboard, (202) 225-3121, or look up your U.S. Representative’s direct office phone number, fax number, web form/email, and/or snail mail (enter your ZIP and click <GO> in upper right corner, then follow the links to your Representative’s website, and contact info. posted there). Urge your U.S. Representative to block this dangerous legislation, by voting against it and urging their U.S. House colleagues to do the same.
The bill would also expedite the opening of centralized interim storage sites for radioactive waste in Texas and/or New Mexico, multiplying Mobile Chernobyl risks. And Energy Secretary Rick Perry just dropped a bombshell proposal this week, at a U.S. House hearing, to also do interim storage at the Nevada Nuclear Weapons Test Site, before ultimately burying the wastes at Yucca, all against the state’s will, without its consent. For more background information and actions, see our Yucca Mountain website section.