Congressman John Lewis's votes against environmentally unjust radioactive waste dumps

As the Honorable U.S. Representative John Robert Lewis (Democrat-Georgia-5th) was laid to rest in power yesterday, it is fitting to remember his good environmental justice votes against radioactively racist high-level radioactive waste dumps in the past.

On May 10, 2018, Congressman Lewis voted against H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2018. He was one of only 72 U.S. Reps. to vote against the bill on the House floor; 340 U.S. Reps. voted for it.  H.R. 3053 would have greased the skids for the opening of the permanent repository for highly radioactive wastes at Yucca Mountain, Nevada -- Western Shoshone land. In addition, it would have authorized so-called consolidated interim storage facilities targeted at a majority Hispanic region of the New Mexico/Texas borderlands, not far from the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. Fortunately, the U.S. Senate never took up the legislation that session, so it did not become law. (Learn more about the House floor vote, and the legislation, here.)

However, a nearly identical bill, H.R. 2699, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019, did pass subcommittee and full committee on the U.S. House side last year. Although it has not (yet) gone to the House floor for an up or down vote, it has been taken up on the Senate side (S. 2917). We must remain vigilant and resist its passage into law. (Learn more, here.)

And on May 8, 2002, Congressman Lewis voted against Joint Resolution 87, the override of Nevada's veto against the Yucca Mountain dump. (See the NIRS press release from that day, here.) Only 117 U.S. Reps. voted against the override; 306 voted in favor of it. The U.S. Senate followed suit, voting 60 to 39 to override Nevada's veto on July 9, 2002. Despite this, the Yucca Mountain dump has been staved off, led by the resistance of the Western Shoshone and a thousand environmental groups, as well as the efforts of the State of Nevada and its U.S. Congressional delegation. The Obama administration cancelled the Yucca Mountain dump early on; efforts to revive it since have not succeeded, but eternal vigilance is required.

Also, as Mustafa Ali, former head of EJ at US EPA, and now serving at the National Wildlife Federation, pointed out on Democracy Now! in early September 2019, the high-level radioactive waste shipments to such dumps in the Southwest, whether by road, rail, or waterway, would themselves be a large EJ burden on people of color and/or low income communities.

As the nation honors the iconic life and work of Congressman John Lewis, we express our thanks for his environmental justice votes in 2002 and 2018, in resistance to high-level radioactive waste dumps targeted at people of color communities, and the large-scale, high-risk Mobile Chernobyl shipping campaign the opening of any one of these dumps would launch.