[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 126 (Tuesday, August 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H8153-H8156]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


   CUTS IN INDIAN HOUSING IN THIS YEAR'S VA, HUD APPROPRIATIONS BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Metcalf). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from American Samoa [Mr. 
Faleomavaega] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, as ranking member of the House 
Subcommittee on Native American and Insular Affairs, I want to speak to 
the Members of this body about the real impact that the fiscal year 
1996 VA, HUD appropriations bill--which we passed last night--will have 
on this country's first people, the Native Americans. I want to talk 
about how Native American tribes and their members remain among the 
poorest rural people in this great country; how they continue to live 
without safe, decent sanitary housing; and how the housing situation 
they find themselves in today is both scary and tragic.
  In 1990, the Bureau of Indian Affairs found that more than 55,000 new 
homes were needed in Indian country and that more than 35,000 homes 
needed extensive repairs. This was more than 5 years ago and knowing 
that this body allocates less than 3,000 units per year to Indian 
housing, it is highly unlikely that this acute need has diminished 
since that time. In addition, the figure that I have just mentioned 
does not account for the thousands of Native Americans who live away 
from their homelands but would return if they could be assured that 
they would find a home upon their return.
  The 1990 U.S. Census has found that Native Americans living in rural 
America have the highest percentage of homes without complete plumbing, 
more than any other population group in the United States. More than 12 
percent of Native Americans living in homes in rural areas, which 
includes Indian reservations and communities and Native Alaskan 
villages, live without running water and flush toilets--amenities which 
most Americans take for granted.
  The 1996 VA, HUD appropriations bill cuts funding for new Indian 
housing starts by 61 percent. While in fiscal year 1995 Congress 
provided the Department of Housing and Urban Development with enough 
funding to construct 2,820 new Indian homes, the fiscal year 1996 
budget will enable HUD to build just 1,000 new units. In addition, the 
bill cuts funding to operate Indian housing authorities by 14 percent, 
and funding for the modernization of Indian housing by 33 percent. 
Indian housing authorities manage HUD's Indian housing programs and 
throughout Indian country are the major providers of housing to Native 
Americans. When funds are cut to Indian housing authorities, we are 
literally denying homes to thousands of impoverished Native Americans. 
In other words, we 

[[Page H8154]]
are denying them the right to live as the rest of us.
  Private financing has not yet arrived in Indian country. Due to a 
complex system of trust land provisions, and BIA title record keeping, 
as well as an absence of appropriate financial markets, private lenders 
have not moved into Indian country. If private lenders are not present 
and Federal funding is being sharply reduced, how do we plan to house 
the thousands of Native Americans living on reservations and 
communities who need housing? Does this body propose to let them 
continue to live impoverished forever? America's first real contract 
with its citizens was when the Federal Government signed the first 
treaty with an Indian tribe. The more than 550 Native American tribes 
and their members constitute America's first people and it is about 
time that we begin to live up to the treaty obligations--such as decent 
housing--that we owe them.
 calling for a cessation of French nuclear testing in the south pacific

  Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, last month, French President Jacques 
Chirac announced that France will abandon the global moratorium on 
nuclear testing and explode eight more nuclear bombs in the South 
Pacific beginning in September. Chirac said that the eight nuclear 
explosions--one a month, with each up to 10 times more powerful than 
the bomb that devastated Hiroshima--will have no ecological 
consequences.
  Mr. Speaker, I cannot comprehend how President Chirac can say with a 
straight face that setting off the equivalent of 80 Hiroshima bombs--
1.2 million tons worth of TNT--in a short time on the tiny coral atolls 
of Moruroa and Fangataufa will have no ecological consequences. My 
constituents, the United States citizens and nationals in American 
Samoa, feel threatened by France's action and don't believe Chirac's 
assurances. Neither do the nations and peoples of the South Pacific.
  After detonating at least 187 nuclear bombs in the heart of the South 
Pacific, France's intent to resume further nuclear poisoning of the 
South Pacific environment has resulted in a firestorm of outrage and 
alarm in the countries of the region, as well as with the world 
community.
  House Concurrent Resolution 80, a measure I introduced which has 
passed the House International Relations Committee and which awaits 
floor action, recognizes the environmental concerns of the 28 million 
men, women, and children of Oceania and calls upon the Government of 
France not to resume nuclear testing on French Polynesia's Moruroa and 
Fangataufa atolls.
  I want to express my thanks to House International Relations 
Committee chairman, Ben Gilman, for his support in passing House 
Concurrent Resolution 80 out of committee and would also extend my 
appreciation to the ranking member of the committee, Lee Hamilton, for 
joining us as an original cosponsor. This measure has broad bipartisan 
support, and I would thank the members of the International Relations 
Committee, Representatives Jim Leach, Howard Berman, Doug Bereuter, Tom 
Lantos, Chris Smith, Gary Ackerman, Dana Rohrabacher, Sam
 Gejdenson, Jay Kim, Sherrod Brown, and Eliot Engel, who are original 
cosponsors or supporters of House Concurrent Resolution 80.

  Mr. Speaker, when the United States stopped atmospheric nuclear 
testing in 1963 and initiated underground tests, it moved from the 
Pacific islands to Nevada. One reason for this was the assessment that 
fragile coral atolls permeated with water were not suitable for 
underground explosions.
  After almost three decades of French nuclear testing in the South 
Pacific, involving more than 140 underground tests, French Polynesia's 
Moruroa atoll has been described by researchers as a ``swiss cheese of 
fractured rock.'' Moruroa and its sister French test site at Fangataufa 
are water-permeable coral atolls on basalt, and they now contain 
several Chernobyls' worth of radioactivity. The great fear in the 
region is that if Moruroa suffers further damage, the radioactivity 
encased from over 100 nuclear tests would spill into the Pacific, 
causing unimaginable harm to the marine environment and the health of 
the Pacific peoples.
  Leakage of radioactive waste from the underground test sites to the 
surrounding waters and air has been predicted, and is inevitable. It is 
hardly surprising that so many people in the Pacific draw a connection 
to the epidemic-like outbreaks in surrounding communities, with 
symptoms including damage to the nervous system, paralysis, impaired 
vision, birth abnormalities, and increased cancer rates among 
Tahitians, in particular. Whether these health problems are connected 
to radioactive leakage or destruction of the coral ecosystem, it defies 
credibility to claim there are no environmental consequences to 
France's nuclear testing. Is it any wonder that the French Government 
has kept medical records at Moruroa a top secret and has permitted no 
long-term follow-up study of workers' health there.
  Mr. Speaker, I would also challenge President Chirac on his statement 
that France's testing program is harmless to the South Pacific 
environment and would take him up on his offer inviting scientists to 
inspect their testing facilities. If President Chirac is acting in good 
faith and he wants to get to the truth of the matter, then he should 
have no reservations in authorizing full and unrestricted access--
before the resumption of tests next month--for an international 
scientific mission to begin to conduct a serious, independent and 
comprehensive sampling and geological study of Moruroa and Fangataufa 
atolls. In conjunction with the monitoring, there should be
 a fully independent epidemiological health survey and full disclosure 
of the French data bases on the environmental and health effects from 
nuclear testing. Mr. Speaker, permission for an unrestricted and 
unimpeded scientific investigation has never been granted before. If 
French President Chirac's assertions are to be believed, then there is 
nothing to hide and it should be an easy request to meet.

  Until we get a response, Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note that 
although France has detonated over 200 nuclear bombs in the past 35 
years, not one of these bombs has been exploded on, above or beneath 
French soil. In the truest form of colonial arrogance, France, instead, 
has exploded almost all of its nuclear bombs in its South Pacific 
colony--after being driven out of Algeria, a former colony also used as 
a nuclear testing dump.
  If the Government of France must explode eight nuclear bombs that 
undermine the historic progress achieved with the recently concluded 
nuclear nonproliferation treaty, then it should explode its bombs on 
French soil. Resuming the detonation of nuclear weapons in Polynesia 
would make France the only nuclear power to test outside the borders of 
the nuclear weapons states.
  Mr. Speaker, I would urge the Members of the House to adopt this 
resolution which sends a strong message of support for the 28 million 
men, women and children of the Pacific that are fighting to protect 
their way of life against France's colonial arrogance and nuclear 
adventurism.
  Mr. Speaker, I also want to share with my colleagues and our 
listening audience throughout America, some additional developments 
concerning France's attempt to explode eight additional nuclear bombs 
in the South Pacific under the Moruroa Atoll--
  Mr. Speaker, I have learned through recent media reports that some 60 
parliamentarians from the nations of the Pacific, from Asia and from 
Europe--all plan to travel to French Polynesia to protest the French 
nuclear testing program which will commence next month. In fact, Mr. 
Speaker, the French Government has already transferred the canisters 
and related materials to detonate the first out of 8 nuclear bombs for 
the next eight months.
  Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding the people and government of 
Germany are calling for an ``intense boycott'' of all French-made goods 
and products. Also, that a flotilla of yachts, schooners, and just 
about anything that can float--are all planning to voyage the Pacific 
and go to Moruroa to protest this immoral and politically expedient 
policy of the French Government to continue nuclear testing in the 
Pacific.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues and every good citizen of our Nation 
to support the 28 million men, women and children who make the Pacific 
Ocean a part of their existence on this planet--I ask for the goodness 
and compassion of the American people to support our 

[[Page H8155]]
Pacific island nations by boycotting all French goods and products that 
are being sold here in the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, this is the only way President Chirac and has military 
subordinates are going to listen to the concerns of millions of people 
around the world. Mr. Speaker, I have nothing personal against 
President Chirac and his military advisers, but I am in every way 
against such a stupid and unnecessary policy of the French Government 
to explode eight more nuclear bombs in the Pacific.
  As one can see on this map, Mr. Speaker--the Pacific Ocean covers 
almost one-third of our planet's surface. And I submit, Mr. Speaker, 
the Pacific Ocean is not a stationary mass of ocean water--the Pacific 
Ocean is a constant moving body of ocean currents that impacts the 
entire marine environment of every country that is part of this 
gigantic region of the world--this includes the entire State of Hawaii, 
the coastlines of the States of Washington, Oregon, and California.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, let's look at the map--this is the Morurao Atoll, 
which is located about 600 miles from the main island of Tahiti--and on 
this group of islands there are some 200,000 native Tahitians and 
expatriates who are all French citizens, Mr. Speaker. I ask, Mr. 
Speaker, has President Chirac ever taken the time and courtesy to 
consult with the French citizens living there. Of course not, because 
it is my belief that even the lives and health of these people are 
determined by the military and President Chirac as expendable. The same 
way, Mr. Speaker,
 on how the French Government determined that the lives of some 75,000 
French citizens who were forcibly deported to Nazi concentration camps 
during World War II. And why? Because they were expendable.

  Mr. Speaker, I ask the good people of France to support the concerns 
of millions of your fellow human beings who live in the Pacific by 
telling President Chirac and his military cronies--France does not need 
to explode eight more nuclear bombs in the Pacific.
  Mr. Speaker, despite indications that the public in France and in 
French Polynesia do not support French nuclear testing in the Pacific--
why does President Chirac insist that France explode eight more nuclear 
bombs? Some say to verify the reliability of its nuclear trigger 
system. But Mr. Speaker, the United States has already exploded over 
1,000 times--nuclear bombs to verify and to test the reliability of our 
nuclear arsenals. Mr. Speaker, our country has already developed the 
technology--we have even offered France the technology--why is 
President Chirac reinventing the wheel, Mr. Speaker?
  It troubles me, Mr. Speaker--and what a sad commentary to make of the 
new leadership of France. What arrogance and total disregard that 
President Chirac makes of the serious environmental concerns that 
nations of the Pacific have had to make about the dangers to marine 
life and to the lives of people living in the Pacific region.
  Mr. Speaker, I respectfully ask the world community and our own 
citizens to boycott all French goods, products, and services wherever 
and however such goods and products are sold in those countries, and 
especially here also in the United States. It appears that this is 
probably the only way leaders like President Chirac is going to 
seriously reevaluate and reexamine this most stupid and asinine policy 
of exploding eight nuclear bombs in order to catch up with the nuclear 
technology that has already been developed--and even more asinine, Mr. 
Speaker, is for the President of France to explode these eight nuclear 
bombs 15,000 miles away from French soil--and exploding these eight 
nuclear bombs in the middle of the largest ocean in the world--an ocean 
that is marine sensitive to all forms of marine life whereby the lives 
of millions of men, women, and children do depend upon every day in 
their lives.
  Mr. Speaker, I make this appeal again to all Americans--make your 
voices heard by boycotting all French goods and products and services--
send a strong message to President Chirac that his policy of exploding 
eight nuclear bombs is absurd and totally wrong.
              French Nuclear Official Vows Safety of Tests

       A senior official of the French Atomic Energy Commission 
     told the French Parliament Defense Committee last week that, 
     from a purely technical viewpoint, nothing prevented France 
     form conducting nuclear tests on its own territory.
       The testimony, likely to be given widespread publicity, 
     will supply new arguments to opponents of French nuclear 
     tests who have suggested, half jokingly, that the tests be 
     conducted in France if they are indeed as harmless as claimed 
     by French president Jacques Chirac.
       Despite mounting international criticism, Chirac confirmed 
     last week that France will proceed with plans to resume 
     nuclear tests in its Pacific territories.

              Japan Threatens Action Over French Test Plan

       Japanese leaders have intensified protests to France over 
     its declared resumption of nuclear tests in the Pacific 
     Ocean, threatening that Tokyo will propose a resolution to 
     the United Nations, send a protest flotilla and boycott 
     French imports, including weapon systems for the Defense 
     Agency.
       Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama said July 19 in Hiroshima 
     that Japan, plans to submit a draft resolution to the U.N. 
     General Assembly in the fall calling for comprehensive 
     prohibition of any kind of nuclear detonation testing.
                                                                    ____

           France is Ready to Meet Peace Flotilla With Armada

       Papeete, Tahiti.--France has stretched cables across the 
     entrance to Mururoa Atoll's lagoon and installed a 
     sophisticated security system to stop a peace flotilla from 
     reaching its South Pacific nuclear test site.
       Vice Adm. Philippe Euverte, commander in chief of the armed 
     forces in French Polynesia, also said the French navy is 
     prepared to send its own armada to stop the flotilla from 
     interfering with the blasts.
       He also made it clear French soldiers would be prepared to 
     use tear gas against members of the flotilla of small boats, 
     yachts and Greenpeace vessels planning to sail to Mururoa to 
     protest the resumption of nuclear testing in September.
       There won't be any mass invasion of the exclusion zone.'' 
     Euverte said. ``It's not easy to enter the lagoon at 
     Mururoa.''
       More than 60 legislators from Australia and New Zealand 
     have volunteered to join the flotilla.
       Japanese and European lawmakers also will go along. 
     Japanese Finance Minister Masayoshi Takemura confirmed today 
     he planned to be part of the protest fleet, organizers 
     announced in Sydney, Australia.
       Some politicians have warned they will try to enter the 12-
     nautical mile exclusion zone around Mururoa.
       ``There won't be any violence used whatsoever--no more than 
     was used three weeks ago,'' said Euverte, who ordered naval 
     commandos using tear gas to seize the Greenpeace flagship 
     Rainbow Warrior II at Mururoa on July 9.
       France has two frigates, three patrol boats and several 
     naval tugs and cargo vessels stationed in French Polynesia. 
     The French navy could also use its powerful tugboats as a 
     physical barrier against protest vessels.
       At Mururoa and the nearby test site of Fangataufa Atoll, 
     preparations are under way for the series of eight 
     underground nuclear tests, due to stretch from September to 
     May.
       France said the tests will be its last.
                                                                    ____

            Nuclear Plan Blamed for Chirac's Popularity Drop

                           (By David Buchan)

       French president Jacques Chirac's decision to resume 
     nuclear testing has now hit him where it hurts most--at home. 
     According to an opinion poll published yesterday, the 
     president's standing has fallen 20 percentage points in the 
     past month.
       The survey by the Ifop polling institute showed that the 
     number of people satisfied with Mr. Chirac's rating fell from 
     54 per cent in June to 44 per cent this month. In his first 
     month of office between May and June, the president's 
     populatrity fell five points.
       Analysing the poll in yesterday's Journal du Dinanche 
     newspaper, Professor Jean-Luc Parodi, a Paris political 
     scientist and consultant to Ifop, said there was no doubt 
     that Mr. Chirac's June 13 announcement of a final series of 
     eight tests in the south Pacific by next May was the main 
     cause for the fall.
       The nuclear test decision was ``spontaneously cited in a 
     massive and exceptional way'' by respondents to the poll, 
     Prof. Parodi said.
       Mr. Chirac insisted on June 19, and subsequently, that he 
     would not go back on his decision to end the three-year 
     moratorium in French nuclear testing. But yesterday's poll 
     will come as an unpleasant surprise to the Chirac 
     administration that had counted on French public opinion 
     remaining immune to the foreign outcry.
       France has a realitively weak anti-nuclear movement of its 
     own and a rather distant relationship with Australia and New 
     Zealand where protests have been loudest. But the spread of 
     the protests to Europe, and the prospect of a growing 
     commercial boycott of French goods and services, has now 
     brought criticism at home.
       Some respondents in the Ifop survey complained that Mr. 
     Chirac had given little warning of his nuclear decision 
     during his election campaign and does little to justify it 
     since.
       French diplomats are resigned to the prospect of criticism 
     continuing over the next 

[[Page H8156]]
     few weeks, first at a series of meetings in Brussels at the end of this 
     month by the Association of South East Asian Nations, and 
     then on the occasion of the August 6 and 9 anniversaries of 
     the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
       The Bosnian crisis does not appear to have contributed to 
     the decline in Mr. Chirac's propularity.
       But it was noteworthy yesterday that prime minister Alain 
     Juppe, whose remit is mainly domestic policy, fared far 
     better in the Ifop poll than his president. His 
     ``satisfaction'' rating fell from 55 to 51 per cent over this 
     past month.
                                                                    ____

             A Pentagon Shell Game With Everything to Lose

                         (By Frank von Hippel)

       Around the world, expressions of outrage have greeted 
     French President Jacques Chirac's decision to carry out major 
     nuclear weapons tests--some perhaps as large as 100,000 tons 
     TNT equivalent--in the South Pacific this winter. France 
     characterizes the tests as the ``last'' before a 
     comprehensive test ban is signed next year. Little attention, 
     however, has been paid to France's determination to conduct 
     powerful ``small'' tests--100 or 200 tons TNT-equivalent--
     forever.
       This would be a perfect time for the United States to urge 
     Chirac to reconsider this position. Unfortunately, the 
     Clinton Administration is not doing so. Instead, its 
     attention is focused on a Pentagon proposal to leapfrog the 
     French position and require that the comprehensive test ban 
     allow tests with even larger yields.
       A test ban that allowed tests with yields of hundreds of 
     tons would create an opening for efforts to develop 
     ``usable'' ``micro-nukes'' and ``mini-nukes.'' It would 
     therefore be seen as a fraud by virtually all of the 170 non-
     nuclear states that agreed this spring to an indefinite 
     extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty after receiving a 
     commitment that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty would be 
     signed next year.
       The Pentagon, like the French military, argues that it will 
     lose confidence that its weapons will retain their 
     destructive power if it cannot see their fission triggers 
     tested now and then at partial yield. Lack of confidence is a 
     psychological state, however, in this case largely self-
     inflicted by the Pentagon's requirement that the power of 
     warheads be guaranteed to within a margin for which there is 
     no military justification. Any objective assessment of the 
     record of more than 1,000 U.S. nuclear tests would give great 
     confidence that the immense destructive power of the current 
     stockpile can be maintained without detonation tests. This 
     confidence extends to faithful copies of these weapons if it 
     becomes necessary to remanufacture them.
       Those arguing the contrary position often ask rhetorically,
        ``Would you expect your car to work if you stored it for 
     20 years without testing?'' Of course not, but the analogy 
     is misleading. A nuclear warhead ``works'' only one time. 
     Still, if you supported multibillion-dollar laboratories 
     to test the components of your car under stressful 
     conditions, adjusting and replacing them as necessary, 
     would it work? You bet it would
       The functioning of nuclear warheads is also checked by 
     replacing the plutonium with an inert simulant and then using 
     a powerful X-ray machine to verify that it implodes into a 
     configuration that would produce a nuclear explosion of the 
     desired yield. All of our nuclear weapons have been designed 
     with these and other sophisticated implosion tests before 
     actual testing. As a result, the nuclear tests were 
     successful with remarkably few exceptions.
       Test ban opponents have made much of the few cases where 
     there were surprises in tests of new warhead designs. But in 
     every case, a new feature--for example, a new type of 
     chemical explosive--had been introduced whose performance was 
     known by the designers to be questionable under some 
     conditions. Such problems have little relevance to the well-
     tested designs in the enduring stockpile.
       To the argument that use of a new plastic or a change in 
     the technique used to manufacture plutonium components might 
     degrade the performance of the warheads, we would respond, 
     ``Don't fiddle with them'' At the same time, experience has 
     shown that the designs are robust enough to tolerate the 
     inevitable minor changes that would occur in remanufacture. 
     There were more differences between the warheads in the 
     stockpile and the prototypes made by the nuclear-weapons 
     laboratories than there would be with future remanufactured 
     warheads. Yet both worked.
       Based on U.S. experience, the objective value of 
     ``reliability'' tests is negligible in comparison with the 
     cost of reneging on the deal with the non-weapons state, 
     which promises that we will all work together against the 
     spread and to reduce the numbers of these terrible devices. 
     President Clinton should reject the demands of those who 
     would test forever and should urge President Chirac to do the 
     same.
     

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