Grassley talks about corporate tax returns, nuclear waste

Senator Charles Grassley is pursing the idea of making corporate tax returns public, to give investors more information.Grassley, quoting a former U-S Supreme Court Justice, says sunshine is the best disinfectant, and the move might bolster public confidence that’s been shaken by accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom. Grassley says while companies have inflated profits and hidden expenses on corporate reports to stockholders, those sorts of fibs aren’t likely on a tax return.Grassley says corporations are very careful about lying to the I-R-S. Grassley has asked the U-S Treasury Secretary and the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission to evaluate his idea. Grassley’s the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.Senator Grassley says he’ll vote to establish a national repository for nuclear waste.Grassley says storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada will protect public safety and improve security, particularly against potential terrorists. Critics say it’s more dangerous to ship spent nuclear fuel across the nation to the Nevada site, but Grassley says the present situation isn’t fail-safe either.Grassley says over a hundred MILLION Americans live within 75 miles of the one-hundred-41 sites where nuclear waste is now temporarily stored. Grassley says spent nuclear fuel’s been shipped around the country for decades and there’s never been an accident. Iowa’s other U-S Senator, Tom Harkin, hasn’t announced yet how he’ll vote on the issue. The Senate’s scheduled to decide the matter this week.