[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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