[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 10 (Tuesday, February 8, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S486-S488]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CIVILIAN PLUTONIUM AGREEMENT
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, a front page article in yesterday's New
York Times announced an agreement that will halt Russia's production of
plutonium from spent fuel used in its civilian power reactors. In
exchange for a Russian moratorium on plutonium reprocessing, the United
States will provide a $100 million joint research and aid. I strongly
support these efforts and believe that this proposal will help to
reduce the threat of proliferation from nuclear materials in Russia.
However, as we pursue new initiatives to better safeguard Russia's
civilian plutonium, we must not waver in our support for the more
urgent task of disposing of their weapons plutonium. The 50 tons of
military-grade plutonium that Russia has agreed is surplus could fuel
more than 6,000 modern weapons. I'm pleased that the Administration is
also recognizing that the lower-grade, civilian, plutonium presents
some risk--but we must continue to place our highest priority on their
military materials, which represent a significantly higher risk.
Currently, Russia possesses 30 tons of separated civilian plutonium
at Mayak and continues to accumulate 2 tons per year from reprocessing
at that facility. This is in addition to the 150 or more tons of
weapons plutonium in the Russian complex.
First, we must ensure that these materials are safeguarded. Second,
any burn capacity Russia has should be committed to first eliminating
military-origin plutonium as mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel. Until the threat
from weapons plutonium is eliminated, Russia has no use for this
reprocessed fuel, and its continued production represents a
proliferation risk, albeit less then the risk from weapons-grade
materials. This agreement will help address immediate needs.
As part of this agreement, the United States will contribute $45
million to improve control and accounting of civilian-grade plutonium
already stored at the Mayak site and build an additional large dry
storage facility elsewhere in Russia. Another $30 million will ensure
adequate safeguards--protection, control and accounting--on the
existing materials. The balance of U.S. contributions--$25 million for
research on proliferation-resistant fuel cycles and permanent
geological storage--is conditioned on Russia ending its sales of
nuclear technology to Iran.
Mr. President, while I support this new initiative to temporarily
halt Russian extraction of plutonium from their spent nuclear fuel, I
want to be sure that my enthusiasm is not interpreted as support for
stopping reprocessing on a global scale. Some nations, like Japan and
France, have decided that reprocessing of spent fuel is key to their
nuclear power plans. By this reprocessing, they not only recycle
plutonium back into reactors, they mitigate the hazard associated with
their nuclear wastes.
In contrast, the U.S. has stuck to an old, 1977, decision to simply
bury our spent fuel--plutonium and all. That not only increases the
health risk from our spent fuel relative to that in France or Japan, it
also means that we are proposing to bury a significant energy resource
that our own future generations may need. The origin of the 1977
decision, fear of proliferation of reactor-grade plutonium, is
certainly not without validity. But reprocessing can be done, as the
French and British have demonstrated, with sufficient care to ensure
that proliferation does not occur.
Reprocessing is not something that the U.S. should embrace today--it
really wouldn't be economical with today's cheap uranium prices. But
I've worked with Senator Murkowski to introduce provisions into his
current Nuclear Waste bill to require that we study advanced
reprocessing and transmutation systems that would both minimize
proliferations concerns related to spent fuel, and also study
technologies that minimize hazards from spent fuel for the public and
for workers. I will encourage that Russia continue to study these same
technologies, because they have great expertise in these areas.
Sometime in the future, we may need to use reprocessing to regain use
of the energy content in spent fuel.
Thus, I believe we should keep future options for civilian fuel
reprocessing open even as we focus attention in Russia on burning
military-origin plutonium. Certainly for now, any attempt to burn
civilian-origin plutonium in Russia only delays progress in decreasing
Russia's excess weapons plutonium stockpile.
Let me return briefly to the more urgent matters associated with
military-grade plutonium. As the Chair of the Senate Plutonium Task
Force, I have pushed hard for completion of a U.S.-Russia agreement on
military plutonium. In 1998, I led the charge to appropriate $200
million for implementation of such an agreement.
I understand that negotiations for this plutonium agreement are very
near completion. This agreement will outline a framework within which
the U.S. and Russia will dispose of 50 tons of excess weapons
plutonium. This framework will address timetables for progress, rates
of disposal, and reciprocal verification of compliance. This agreement
will turn the U.S. and Russian political commitments regarding
irreversibility into a physical reality.
However, I've been dismayed that the Administration has recently
chosen to remove $49 million from the $200 million set aside for
disposition of weapons-plutonium to fund other priorities. That is very
short sighted reasoning. The full $200 million has served to keep
pressure on the negotiating teams to finalize the disposition
protocols. We send a completely inappropriate message when funds are
withdrawn from that account. I intend to work in the next few months to
restore this $49
[[Page S487]]
million. Furthermore, I will continue to oppose any future use of these
funds by the Administration for anything other than their intended
purpose.
The Administration's new initiative can work in tandem with the
efforts focused on military plutonium. I urge the Administration to
make quick and quantifiable progress on both of these fronts. The
threat of proliferation from the Russian nuclear complex continues to
grow. And it continues to be one of the greatest threats to U.S.
security today.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this New York Times
article be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, Feb. 7, 2000]
Moscow Takes Step To Ease U.S. Fears on Plutonium Use
(By Judith Miller)
In a major agreement aimed at safeguarding nuclear fuel
that could be used to make weapons, Russia has promised to
stop making plutonium out of fuel from its civilian power
reactors as part of a $100 million joint research and aid
package from the United States, Clinton administration and
Russian officials say.
While the administration has several collaborative programs
that enhance the safety and security of plutonium produced by
Russia's military, this is the Energy Department's first
major attempt to secure Russia's huge civilian stockpile of
plutonium, from which 3,000 nuclear weapons could be made.
``It's a bold initiative to reduce a 30-ton plutonium
threat from Russia's civilian nuclear sector,'' Secretary of
Energy Bill Richardson said in a telephone interview. His
department is to make public Russia's moratorium on plutonium
reprocessing today when it unveils its budget for the next
fiscal year.
Administration officials and arms control experts were
particularly pleased with the deal, more than a year in the
works, because it comes at a time of growing strains in
relations with Russia over its war in Chechnya, policy toward
Iraq, and access to Russian nuclear facilities.
The agreement is also likely to place added pressure on
other nuclear powers like Japan, Britain and France to follow
suit, arms control experts said. Because of concerns about
the environment and the spread of nuclear materials to
countries like Iran, Iraq and North Korea, the United States
has not reprocessed fuel since 1978.
Part of the accord--$25 million for long-term joint
research that is most attractive to Russia--is contingent on
an end to new sales and transfers of nuclear technology to
Iran. Washington believes that those transactions are helping
Tehran acquire nuclear weapons.
``The money for this research will be in our budget,'' said
Ernest P. Moniz, the Undersecretary of Energy, who was in
Moscow last week to discuss the agreement. ``It's now up to
Russia to decide if they want it.''
But the bulk of the money will be given in exchange for
Russia's decision to halt reprocessing nuclear fuel from its
29 civilian power reactors. That will include, if Congress
approves, $45 million to better secure spent fuel already
stored at Mayak, a once closed nuclear complex in the
southern Urals, and to build a large dry storage site
elsewhere in Russia.
Yevgeny Adamov, Russia's atomic energy minister, insisted
in a telephone interview from Moscow that despite the
agreement, Russia would not stop competing to sell new
lightwater power reactors to Iran.
At the same time, he said, Russia has lived up to the
commitments made to Washington last year not to provide
sensitive material or technology to Iran. But it was willing
in principle to discuss additional safeguards and ``more
commitments for greater transparency to remove American
concerns.''
Mr. Adamov also stressed that Russia was not abandoning its
belief that plutonium, which is produced by all nuclear
reactors, could eventually be used to fuel a generation of
``safe'' reactors, not yet developed, that would produce
waste more difficult to recycle into weapons.
``We're talking in terms of decades,'' for the moratorium
on plutonium reprocessing, he said. ``At least two may be
enough.''
Russia, officials said, already possesses about 150 metric
tons of plutonium and 1,200 metric tons of highly enriched
uranium, both of which can be used in nuclear weapons.
Given that, said Thomas Graham Jr., a former arms control
negotiator who now is president of the Lawyers Alliance for
World Security, an arms control group in Washington, ``it is
important to stop the accumulation of material that some
rogue nations would love to get their hands on.''
``This is a very important agreement,'' he added.
In 1998 alone, Energy Department officials said, Russia's
29 civilian reactors produced 798 metric tons of spent fuel.
Normally, Russia would send this material to Mayak for
reprocessing--that is, the separation of plutonium, which can
be used in weapons, from the rest of the fuel.
But under the new agreement, the plutonium will not be
separated out. Instead, the unreprocessed material will be
stored at a new site somewhere in Russia that the United
States will finance.
The location and ultimate cost of the site are still not
determined, but Mr. Adamov said he was leaning toward
Krasnoyarsk-26, a once closed nuclear city where the Russian
military made plutonium.
William C. Potter, the director of the Monterey Institute's
Center for Nonproliferation Studies, in California,
particularly praised an allocation of $3 million in the
aid package aimed at helping Russia reacquire Soviet-era
fuel from countries like Belarus, Ukraine and Yugoslavia.
He fears that the material is vulnerable to diversion or
military use.
Since the end of the cold war, the United States has spent
billions of dollars to protect nuclear materials in Russia
and the former Soviet Union and to prevent them from falling
into the hands of Iran, Iraq or other aspiring nuclear
powers. As of this year, Washington has spent about $1.2
billion to help prevent the loss or theft of material that
could be used in nuclear weapons.
At Mayak, the United States is already financing the
construction of a warehouse to protect bomb-grade plutonium
extracted from nuclear warheads. A recent American visitor
there said that some plutonium was still being stored in
milk-pail-size canisters in a wooden storage shed secured
mainly by a padlock.
Since 1993, Washington has bought 500 metric tons a year of
highly enriched uranium from Russian weapons, sales worth
more than $400 million a year to Russia. The uranium, which
is blended down and sold as reactor-grade fuel for power
production, meets about half of America's nuclear power fuel
requirements.
The new aid package for Russia would provide $45 million
for the dry storage site and security upgrades for the
stockpiled civilian plutonium and $30 million for new efforts
to safeguard material from the military sector.
It would also provide $20 million for collaborative
research into devising reactors and fuel that cannot be used
to make weapons, and $5 million for research into the design
and development of a permanent geological repository to store
used fuel. Administration officials stressed that only those
last two items, which are longer-term projects, hinge on an
end to Russian nuclear sales to Iran.
Mr. Adamov said on Saturday that Washington would be
``wrong'' to believe that a $100 million assistance package
would prompt Russia to forgo revenue from future reactor
sales, each of which could be worth up to $1 billion dollars.
``These are huge orders for our industry, and we'll
aggressively pursue these orders and win them,'' he said.
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, in the fall of 1998 our majority leader
named a bipartisan group of members to a Task Force on Plutonium
Disposition to advise the Senate and the Administration on actions with
respect to U.S. policy and approaches to bilateral negotiations with
Russia on the disposition of weapons-excess plutonium. I was pleased to
be invited to join the group and Senator Domenici was chosen to chair
the Task Force.
Mr. President, Senator Domenici has been a pioneer in the area of
nuclear weapons material safety, security and elimination. He has spent
a great deal of time researching this initiative and engaging our
Russian colleagues on the issue. He was instrumental in creating a
bilateral dialogue on plutonium disposition that led to the protocol on
plutonium disposition signed in September 1998 at the Moscow Summit.
This Protocol has led to ongoing negotiations to finalize a bilateral
agreement to dispose of large quantities of weapons material.
The need for leadership in this area was clear. Unclassified sources
estimate that the United States has 100 tons of plutonium and Russia
has more than 160 tons of plutonium. Most of this material is in pit
form, or classified weapons shape. In other words, the material could
easily be returned to weapons status. The U.S. and Russia have each
declared that portions of their respective stockpiles are surplus. This
material represents thousands of nuclear weapons on each side,
including Russian weapons that until a short time ago were pointed at
American cities.
Mr. President, the United States has been working with Russia to
dismantle their nuclear arsenal through the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative
Threat Reduction program. All over Russia American firms are
cooperating with Russian counterparts in deactivating nuclear warheads
and dismantling long-range ballistic missiles, strategic submarines and
bombers. The U.S. secured Russian agreement to remove the material from
these warheads to safe and secure storage at the Fissile Material
Storage Facility under construction at Mayak, Russia. But, the U.S. was
still left with the challenge of how to get rid of the plutonium, to
ensure that this material would never again threaten the American
people.
[[Page S488]]
Through Senator Domenici's discussions it became evident that a wide
gulf separated the views of the Administration and Russian leadership
with regard to the appropriate disposition actions. The Russians hold
the position that plutonium has great value, and want to ensure that
any actions extract the energy resource remaining in the material by
using it as reactor fuel. The U.S. was considering both recovery of
this resource and immobilization. Immobilization mixes the plutonium
with ceramic material and surrounds it with vitrified, high-level waste
for long term storage. Some scientists and some Russian leaders have
noted that immobilization may be a less secure means of disposition
than use as a reactor fuel.
Senator Domenici encouraged a solution wherein both nations would
pursue the reactor fuel option, with so-called mixed oxide or MOX fuel.
In addition, the U.S. can use immobilization for some of its less pure
materials that would require significant purification to incorporate
into reactor-grade fuel. This solution has been embraced in the current
negotiations by both countries. Now both nations are moving toward
parallel reductions in amounts of plutonium.
Our Task Force has been briefed by the Departments of State and
Energy on the current status of negotiations on a Framework Agreement
to implement a plutonium disposition process in Russia and the United
States. A U.S.-Russian agreement to dispose up to 50 metric tons of
weapons grade material on each side is proceeding in a very positive
direction. I am hopeful that they will soon produce a draft agreement.
There are still important issues to be resolved and hurdles to be
cleared but it is clear that we would not have enjoyed this significant
progress if it were not for Senator Domenici's leadership. His efforts
in cooperation with Senator Stevens, the Chairman of our Appropriations
Committee, to secure forward funding for the implementation of this
agreement was crucial in securing Russian participation.
I commend my good friend, the senior Senator from New Mexico, for his
leadership in this area and thank him for what I hope will be a
tremendously valuable national security program. We will all watch the
negotiations proceeding in Moscow and hope for a positive conclusion.
When this agreement is finalized and implemented, which I believe it
will be, each of us will owe Senator Domenici a debt of gratitude for
making the world safer for our children and grandchildren.
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