Beyond Nuclear - Radioactive Waste What's New

Ripon Advance - Shimkus, Upton, Walden commend House committee passage of nuclear waste disposal bill - By Ripon Advance News Service

Tellingly, U.S. Representatives Shimkus (R-IL) and Walden (R-OR) have announced they will not seek re-election after the current congressional session. Yucca dump opponents from coast to coast say good riddance, after years and even decades of environmental injustice, environmental racism, radioactive racism, and violation of the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley with the Western Shoshone Indian Nation, the supreme law of the land, equal in stature to the U.S. Constitution itself! That is what the Yucca dump they have been and still are pushing represents! Shimkus, Upton (R-MI), and Walden have led these despicable efforts.

And Upton is one of the nuclear power industry's best friends in Congress. See the following Beyond Nuclear exposés on Upton:

Individual Contributions to Rep. Upton Associated with the Nuclear Industry

October, 2010 update based on Federal Election Commission data
Rep. Upton's Campaign Contributions from Nuclear Industry Related PACs

October, 2010 update based on Federal Election Commission data
Fred Upton, One of the Nuclear Industry's Best Friends in Congress

2 page summary, updated 10/10/10
Fred Upton, One of the Nuclear Industry's Best Friends in Congress

22 page report, with citations, 2008

Beyond Nuclear and dozens of other organizations also called Upton on his hypocrisy. In H.R. 2699, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019, Upton (as well as Democrat Debbie Dingell from Michigan), say that high-level radioactive waste has no place near the Great Lakes, vis-a-vis long-term or permanent storage or disposal there. But Upton has been fine with long-term storage of high-level radioactive waste on the Great Lakes shores, ever since taking office in 1986. He has been one of the biggest cheerleaders for high-level radioactive waste generation, and long-term storage, not only at the three reactors in his own s.w. MI congressional district (Palisades, Cook Units 1 and 2), but at reactors beyond, nationwide, including on the Great Lakes shoreline, as well as just upstream and upwind.

See that letter here:

Beyond Nuclear, and 25 allied organizations from the U.S. and Canada, called out Dingell's and Upton's hypocrisy in an open letter sent to Great Lakes members of the U.S. Congress, during earlier consideration of very similar legislation (H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017 and 2018, during the last congressional session). See the Dec. 20, 2017 coalition letter here; see the Jan. 4, 2018 press release here.