Paul Wellstone floor remarks on a Sanders cosponsored bill to dump waste at Sierra Blanca. [View all]

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Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I would like to speak out this evening about an enormously important issue that has seldom, if ever, been addressed on the floor of the United States Senate. I understand my colleague needs to leave at 7, and I am going to try to figure out a way to accommodate him if at all possible. My understanding is, I will also have a chance to speak more about this in morning business.

This issue I want to address tonight has variously been called `environmental discrimination,' `environmental equity,' `environmental justice,' or `environmental racism.' These terms are used interchangeably to describe the well-documented tendency for pollution and waste dumps to be sited in poor and minority communities who lack the political power to keep them out.

Environmental justice has been at the center of the debate over H.R. 629, legislation granting congressional consent to the so-called Texas Compact. If passed unamended by this Congress, the Texas Compact would result in the dumping of low-level radioactive waste from nuclear reactors in Texas, Maine, and Vermont--and potentially from nuclear reactors all over the country--in the poor and majority-Latino town of Sierra Blanca in West Texas.

Environmental justice is an issue that demands the full attention of the Senate. If we pass this legislation unamended, we can no loner pretend to be innocent bystanders as one poor, minority community after another is victimized by political powerlessness--and, in some cases, by overt racism. We can no longer pretend that a remedy for this basic violation of civil rights is beyond our reach. That is the ultimate significance of this legislation--and of this debate.

The moral responsibility of the Senate is unavoidable and undeniable. If we approve H.R. 629 without conditions, the Compact dump will be built within a few miles of Sierra Blanca. There's really very little doubt about that. And if that happens, this poor Hispanic community could become the premier national repository for so-called `low-level' radioactive waste.

If we reject this Compact, on the other hand, the Sierra Blanca dump will not be built at all. The Texas Governor has said so publicly--more than once. It's as simple as that. The fate of Sierra Blanca rests in our hands.

Compact supporters would prefer that we consider the Compact without any reference to the actual location of the dump. But that simply cannot be done. It's true that H.R. 629 says nothing about Sierra Blanca. But we know very well where this waste will be dumped. In that respect, the Texas Compact is different from other compacts the Senate has considered.

The Texas legislature in 1991 already identified the area where the dump will be located. The Texas Waste Authority designated the site near Sierra Blanca in 1992. A draft license was issued in 1996. License proceedings are now in their final stages and should be completed by summer. Nobody doubts that the Texas authorities will soon issue that license.

There's only one reason why this dump might not get built--and that's if Congress rejects the Texas Compact. In an April 1998 interview, Texas Gov. George Bush said, `If that does not happen,' meaning congressional passage of the Compact, `then all bets are off.' In the El Paso Times of May 28, Gov. Bush said, `If there's not a Compact in place, we will not move forward.'

For these reasons, we cannot fairly consider H.R. 629 without also considering the dump site that Texas has selected. Sierra Blanca is a small town in one of poorest parts of Texas, an area with one of the highest percentages of Latino residents. The average income of people who live there is less than $8,000. Thirty-nine percent live below the poverty line. Over 66 percent are Latino, and many of them speak only Spanish.

It is a town that has already been saddled with one of the largest sewage sludge projects in the world. Every week Sierra Blanca receives 250 tons of partially treated sewage sludge from across the country. Depending on what action Congress decides to take, this small town with minimal political clout may also become the national repository for low-level radioactive waste. And I understand plans for building even more dump sites are also in the works.

Supporters of the Compact would have us believe that the designation of Sierra Blanca had nothing to do with the income or ethnic characteristics of its residents. That it had nothing to do with the high percentage of Latinos in Sierra Blanca and the surrounding Hudspeth County--at least 2.6 times higher than the State average. That the percentage of people living in poverty--at least 2.1 times higher than the State average--was completely irrelevant.

They would have us believe that Sierra Blanca was simply the unfortunate finalist in a rigorous and deliberate screening process that fairly considered potential sites from all over the State. That the outcome was based on science and objective criteria. I don't believe any of this is true.

I am not saying science played no role whatsoever in the process. It did. Indeed, based on the initial criteria coupled with the scientific findings, Sierra Blanca was disqualified as a potential dump site. It wasn't until politics entered the picture that Sierra Blanca was even considered.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-1998-06-15/html/CREC-1998-06-15-pt1-PgS6349.htm

HR 629