Urge Members of U.S. House of Representatives Rules Committee to Block the Shimkus Amendment, Which Would Restore Yucca Nuke Waste Dump Funding! Yucca Nuclear Storage is not safe. In an earthquake zone and up river from the Amaragosa River which irrigates farmland and provide water, the Western Shoshone Oppose place this pollution on their sacred land, and the people of Nevada in general oppose becoming a nuclear dump. Plus…the nuclear industry is not the answer to Global Climate Change — too expensive, too many “unintended consequences”.
The Fiscal Year 2020 Energy & Water Appropriations Bill will be voted on, on the U.S. House Floor, later this week. U.S. Rep. Shimkus (Republican-IL) has proposed an amendment, to add tens of millions of dollars of Yucca nuke waste dump funding, into the bill. At 5pm Eastern today, the U.S. House Rules Committee will vote, on whether to allow this amendment to move to the full House floor. This amendment must be blocked! (Sorry for the short notice, but we’ve only just gotten this news ourselves!)
Is your U.S. Representative on the House Rules Committee? If yes, your call/email/fax to their office could make a big difference! If not, please alert anyone you know in any of the following members’ congressional districts, to take action themselves!
Here is the list of U.S. House Rules Committee members:
Majority (Democratic) Members Minority (Republican) Members
Chairman Jim McGovern
(D-MA-2nd)
Ranking Member Tom Cole
(R-OK-4th)
Rep. Alcee L. Hastings
(D-FL-20th)
Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA-7th)
Rep. Norma J. Torres
(D-CA-35th)
Rep. Michael Burgess
(R-TX-26th)
Rep. Ed Perlmutter
(D-CO-7th)
Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ-8th)
Rep. Jamie Raskin
(D-MD-8th)
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon
(D-PA-5th)
Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY-25th)
Rep. Donna Shalala
(D-FL-27th)
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier
(D-CA-11th)
You can be patched through to your U.S. Representative’s D.C. office via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Or click through at the members’ names’ above, to find their contact info. (direct D.C. office phone and fax numbers; online webform for submitting email).
Urge your U.S. Rep. to block Yucca dump funding, as the opening of the Yucca dump would lead to many thousands of Mobile Chernobyl truck, train, and barge shipments through most states, many major cities (including Washington, D.C., right past the U.S. Capitol itself — see a photo of the rail route, above right!), and 75% of U.S. congressional districts. Yucca is also: scientifically unsuitable (won’t isolate the radioactive waste from the environment, but instead will leak massively into the groundwater); non-consent-based; illegal (the Western Shoshone Indian Nation holds title to the land and water, via the Treaty of Ruby Valley of 1863); and an environmental injustice (the Western Shoshone, Southern Paiute, and other Nevadans downwind have already suffered significantly from decades of nuclear weapons testing radioactive fallout).
The good news is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposes restoration of Yucca dump funding. So too does House Appropriations Chair Nita Lowey (D-NY), and Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Marcy Kaptur (D-OH). But when the full Appropriations Committee voted on this amendment last month, four Democrats defected to the pro-Yucca dump side. Although the restoration of Yucca dump funding was blocked in committee, it was by a narrow margin of 27 to 25. That’s why pro-Yucca dump IL Republican John Shimkus is trying to reintroduce his amendment, for consideration on the full House floor, in hopes of picking off enough Dems, to switch sides, so that his amendment passes as part of the Energy & Water Appropriations bill. We must stop him in the Rules Committee first, before his amendment reaches the full House floor!
Thank you for taking action directly, or spreading word to your friends and colleagues in any of the U.S. congressional districts represented above!
We must do all we can to block restoration of funding for the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Western Shoshone Indian land in Nevada!
