[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 79 (Tuesday, June 21, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

  Mr. THURMOND. Madam President, the Senate will soon begin debate on 
the 1995 Defense authorization bill. At that time I plan to speak at 
some length on the President's budget and the recommendations of the 
Armed Services Committee. Today, however, I want to address a topic to 
which I believe the Senate must devote special attention. That is the 
woeful state of our nuclear weapons posture.
  The measure of our nuclear posture is not merely the number of 
weapons we have; it is also our capability to maintain our nuclear 
weapons over the years, no matter what. That, Madam President, is in 
terrible shape. This administration has put us on a course of 
unilateral nuclear disarmament. This administration has explicitly, 
formally planned that, starting in 2010 or so, we run out of all 
tritium reserves. Without tritium, our nuclear weapons will not work, 
so we will begin in 2010, or so, to lose nuclear weapons at a rate of 
hundreds per year. Madam President, nothing can be done to stop this 
unless this administration changes direction and builds an assured 
supply of tritium. It is as simple as that.

  Who would ever have thought that our nuclear weapons posture would 
come to this? For 50 years now we have had a bipartisan national 
security policy in those areas where the very survival of the United 
States was at issue. Ten administrations agreed that nuclear deterrence 
would be the central core of our defense policy.
  Now I am afraid we may be seeing that unanimity of policy in the face 
of nuclear danger begin to slip away. I hope I am wrong, because the 
world is more dangerous, not less; there are more nuclear foes, not 
less; the United States is more vulnerable, not less. But in certain 
decisions the administration is apparently now taking, I see the end of 
the object of our bipartisan agreement.
  Madam President, let me give some examples of how this administration 
is putting us on the road to a covert nuclear phaseout. First, it is no 
secret that the Secretary of Energy has surrounded herself with a small 
number of advisers, perhaps four or five, who appear to be the 
architects of nuclear policy in DOE. What is alarming to me is that 
three of them have spent most of their professional lives as 
antinuclear activists. What is alarming is that U.S. national security 
will be impacted for decades by decisions made in 1994 by professional 
antinuclear activist veterans of ban-the-bomb campaigns, who have 
fought the national nuclear weapons program for years, in the press and 
in the courts. None of these advisors have had any experience in what 
it takes to maintain our nuclear weapon complex; what is alarming is 
that this administration does seem to not care.
  Second, look what they are doing to the nuclear weapon complex. All 
the plants are closed permanently. The knowledge of skilled craftsmen 
is gone. Capabilities are dissipated. It is true that we have no need 
to produce nuclear weapons now. But DOE is making sure we never can 
again. We had a plan to reconfigure, reduce, and modernize, to build a 
modest but modern capacity that would last. But even that was too much 
for this antinuclear crowd at DOE. They canceled that reconfiguration 
program. They abolished the office. Madam President, no other nuclear 
nation is doing this. The French are maintaining their complex at top 
form. The British have kept their manufacturing facilities in 
commission. The Russians, in all their misery, have not abandoned 
nuclear weapons plants. The Chinese are building at the same pace they 
always have. Madam President, is there some secret that Mrs. O'Leary's 
advisors know, something that has escaped the rest of us; some secret 
that says it is wise and right for us, alone of nuclear powers, to 
dismantle our nuclear complex and put ourselves on the road to the 
ultimate nuclear free zone: an America without nuclear weapons?

  Third, DOE is planning, yes, planning that we have a tritium 
shortage. In a letter dated June 10, Secretary O'Leary says ``the 
United States has sufficient tritium in its inventory to meet projected 
requirements, including a reserve, until 2009.'' But she goes on to say 
that if a new production reactor is begun in 1996, it will be 2011 
before it produces tritium. Already, DOE plans that we eat into our 
critical reserve, something we have never done before. This is just to 
maintain the START II stockpile. Madam President what if something goes 
wrong; what if the Russians change their mind on dismantlement? What 
options do we have? Here is DOE's answer; it is so pathetic that I 
hesitate to describe it to the Senate, but here it is: either restart a 
reactor built in 1954, or commandeer a commercial nuclear power plant, 
or buy tritium from the Russians. These are not serious options. These 
will never happen. Mrs. O'Leary knows they will never happen. Madam 
President, if anything goes wrong, DOE has seen to it that we have no 
acceptable options.
  Fourth, DOE has left us awash in plutonium and spent fuel. We will 
have tons of plutonium from dismantled weapons, but DOE refuses to 
build a reactor to consume it. We have reactor fuel sitting corroding 
in ponds at Savannah River, and DOE is bringing in more from overseas, 
all because DOE refuses to reprocess spent fuel. They do not dare. 
Their antinuclear colleagues would never forgive them if they were to 
reprocess fuel or build a reactor. That would send the wrong message to 
the world. This administration thinks that if we stop reprocessing fuel 
and if we stop building reactors, why then surely the rest of the world 
will see our wisdom and follow us. Madam President, because of this 
silly theory that what we do will change the nuclear ambitions of North 
Korea, Iraq, or Pakistan, my State is subjected to being a dumping 
ground for corroding reactor fuel. It is a terrible policy and it is 
wrong.

  Why would they put is in such a bind? What drives their thinking over 
their? I want to believe that their intentions are good, that they are 
not intentionally planning that we stumble toward disaster.
  Madam President, at a time when weapons of mass destruction are 
proliferating around the world and falling into the hands of outlaw 
states, the United States appears determined to go out of the nuclear 
weapons business, by default if not by design. If present trends 
continue, strategic forces will fall to below START II levels. We are 
canceling weapons production, scrapping vital facilities, losing the 
rare human skills needed to fabricate, maintain, and test weapons, and 
putting an end to testing. With the loss of hard-to-replace 
infrastructure, the loss of scientists and engineers, and the projected 
shortage of tritium, I can foresee a time early in the next century 
when America will no longer be a nuclear power. It is going to happen, 
and it is going to be because of this administration's overthrow of 50 
years of bipartisan agreement. Madam President, I hope I am wrong, but 
it appears from evidence like this that the administration is committed 
to a nuclear policy far different from what was the basis of 50 years 
of bipartisan agreement--a new policy based on guilt and shame, a 
policy that tells the world that the United States is ashamed of having 
nuclear weapons, a policy dictated by professional antinuclear 
activists.

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