[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 118 (Friday, August 19, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                   OPEN MARKET ON ATOMIC BOMB PLANTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kopetski). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from Maryland [Mrs. Bentley] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. BENTLEY. Mr. Speaker, recent newspaper stories reveal in vivid 
detail the threat of the nuclear bombs made in garages or in some third 
world factory.
  For that reason it is a scandal and threat to our national security 
that the Department of Energy allowed components of a nuclear 
reprocessing plant to make bomb-grade uranium to be sold on the open 
market as excess property. Not only was the plant sold, but the crucial 
blueprints, flow sheets, and manuals to set it up were provided the 
buyer, Mr. Johansen of Pocatello, ID.
  The scandal is that the Secretary of Energy, Mrs. O'Leary, took 5 
months to reply to a request from NRC Chairman Ivan Selin that the 
matter be resolved by buying back the equipment. It is outrageous that 
the security forces in the Department of Energy were not informed by 
the Secretary about the matter. The Department has a good security 
agency which cannot operate efficiently if it is blindsided by the 
Secretary.
  I am thankful for the friendship of the British Ministry of Defense 
officials which sent a handwritten note to the State Department.
  The Wall Street Journal reported the British note written by Ray 
Gatrell, a nuclear safeguard official at Whitehall stated:

       I don't know if you know but--Frontier Salvage of Idaho are 
     trying to sell a Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Plan. BNFL UK 
     isn't interested. I wondered if Saddam Hussein et. al. might 
     be. I thought you or your colleagues might wish to check it 
     out.

  With the mention of Saddam Hussein our American officials finally 
understood the threat of the sale of the equipment but, not before 
Japan became involved. The article pointed out that an agent of Mr. 
Johansen turned up a Japanese potential buyer who wanted the related 
documents. Mr. Johansen obliged, and call the Idaho laboratory and 
asked for the documents.
  The people at the lab didn't catch on even then, but told him the 
documents were probably classified. What makes the story even worse is 
the fact that Mr. Johansen followed instructions from someone at the 
lab and faxed a request to the Energy Department's Idaho field office 
under the Freedom of Information Act. The Idaho field officer, Carl R. 
Robertson, wrote Mr. Johansen that the drawings were his if he paid 
$280 for search and copying costs.
  Then Mr. Johansen went to still another individual Lloyd McClure, 
manager of technology transfer for Westinghouse Idaho 
Nuclear Co., which was another contractor at the Idaho lab, and 
obtained a manual with flow sheets and a Government directory of 
nuclear facilities world-wide. These particular documents explained how 
the parts fit together and they were then given to the Japanese 
businessman.
  Unbelievably, Mr. McClure wrote to Mr. Johansen explaining how glad 
he was that the information could help potential buyers. He stated, 
``Sale for use should result in higher profits for you than just 
selling it as scrap.'' This is an absolutely outrageous story.
  The Wall Street Journal pointed out that Mr. Johansen is trying to 
sell his plant and has been shuffled from official to official in 
Idaho.
  The Secretary did not move quickly to buy back the equipment but an 
Australian firm has offered $8.3 million for the components, 
blueprints, manuals and x rays. Apparently that undisclosed client is 
the Government of India.
  Finally, the Energy Department is acting to buy back the plant, but 
it is not clear whether Mrs. O'Leary weighed in on that decision. What 
is perfectly clear is the Secretary of Energy has acted in an 
incompetent manner by not acting quickly to repurchase the equipment--
and even worse to allow it to be sold on the open market. This nonsense 
about our nuclear security must stop.

                          ____________________