February 25, 2003

Renaissance Washington Hotel,  11 A.M.

JAMES L. MARTIN, PRESIDENT, 60 PLUS ASSOCIATION

The 60 Plus Association urges Congress to move forward and approve the safe storage of nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain.

Senior citizens have a great interest in this issue from a national security perspective. Seniors know that we will have better national security if nuclear fuel is stored in one safe and permanent and heavily guarded facility. We do not need nuclear fuel in temporary storage facilities throughout the country.

Part and parcel in that effort is the need to fix the funding program for the Yucca Mountain project. Only a portion of the roughly $775 million dollars paid by consumers each year into the Nuclear Waste Fund is actually spent for funding of a repository program. 60 Plus believes the DOE must have access to the full balance of the fund.

The 60 Plus Association, a national, nonpartisan senior citizens advocacy group of half a million members nationwide, acknowledges proper funding as a critical element in assuring the safe movement and storage of nuclear fuel, beginning in 2010. Congress must fix the funding mechanism now so that the government may honor its commitment to consumers to manage used fuel from 41 states.

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