[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 98 (Monday, July 16, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7671-S7678]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2002--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, what is the matter now pending before the 
Senate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. H.R. 2311.


                           Amendment No. 980

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the substitute 
amendment be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be considered original 
text for the purpose of further amendment, and that no points of order 
be waived by this request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] for Mr. Byrd and Mr. 
     Stevens, proposes an amendment numbered 980.

  (The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under 
``Amendments Submitted.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the amendment is 
agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 980) was agreed to.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, this afternoon we begin consideration for 
the Fiscal Year 2002 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act. 
The legislation we take up today was reported unanimously from the full 
Committee on Appropriations last Thursday.
  Before I begin my description of the contents of this bill, I want to 
share one strongly felt opinion with my colleagues. It is my opinion, I 
believe--I have a real suspicion that Senator Domenici, the ranking 
member of the subcommittee, will agree--that this subcommittee has 
always been among the most bipartisan in the Senate.
  As I look back over the time that my role was filled by Bennett 
Johnston, I know he and Senator Domenici had an outstanding 
relationship. They worked very closely together. This bill was always 
one of the first to come up. This bill is the second to come up this 
appropriations cycle. I have tried--and I have no doubt, based on my 
experience with Senator Domenici, that he has tried--to be as 
bipartisan as possible on this bill. Despite the unusual circumstances 
this year with the shift in power of the Senate, this tradition has 
continued unabated.
  My friend, the senior Senator from New Mexico, and I have, with the 
tireless efforts of our very professional and good staff, produced a 
bill that we acknowledge is not perfect. But it addresses the important 
issues facing our Nation. There are many important issues we are 
dealing with in this legislation.
  We received 300 more requests than last year on this bill. It is 
certainly fair to say that there have been over 1,000. Most requests 
were to enhance new funding for water projects within the Corps of 
Engineers, an organization the administration cut by 14 percent in its 
budget request this year. We have done in this bill as much as we can 
on a bipartisan basis to enhance the funding for these water projects.
  Mr. President, you are a new member in the Senate. I think a lot of 
people who are new to the Senate and people outside the Senate would 
question water projects. Why do we need water projects? Are these 
things you throw to a House Member in his district to make him or her 
feel good? These water projects are essential to the country. There is 
criticism given to the water projects. We have added $400 million to 
the budget of the Corps of Engineers, $64 million to the Bureau of 
Reclamation.
  I wish we could give three times that much to each organization. But 
with these additional funds, we have tried to accommodate as many 
requests and priorities as possible.
  Let me give you a few examples of these water projects and why they 
are important. For the examples that I give, I will be very succinct. 
There are hundreds and hundreds of projects in this country that are 
life-and-death projects.
  One is in the State of Nevada: Flood control. There are people who 
write all over the country: Reid got pork for Las Vegas; flood control. 
People think: It never rains in Las Vegas. It rains 4 inches a year in 
Las Vegas--4 inches a year. You can get that much rain in other parts 
of the country in an hour, certainly in a day. But we get 4 inches a 
year in Las Vegas. Yet when it rains, it can be devastating because we 
have what we call cloudbursts.
  Now we have 1.5 million, 1.6 million people in that valley. When that 
rain comes, it is very difficult. I can remember as a lieutenant 
governor, we were told by the Park Service that we were going to have 
to close a little facility on the Colorado River, Nelson's Landing. It 
has been there well over 100 years. We were going to have to close

[[Page S7672]]

it. The Governor assigned me to look at that and the complaints we were 
getting. We prevailed on the Park Service not to close it. They said we 
were going to have a 100-year flood. I went and talked to people and 
they said they had never known that much rain coming down that canyon: 
The Federal Government, they don't know what they are talking about.
  Mr. President, it rained. This isn't something I am proud of, but it 
is something that is a fact. It rained. It rained in a very small area. 
It rained very hard. But all of that water dumped down this canyon, and 
people looked up and they saw a wall of water 100 feet high coming at 
them. It washed cars away. It killed seven people. We never found the 
cars and mobile homes that washed away.
  In southern Nevada, again Nelson's Landing--but in Las Vegas we have 
had floods that have been just as devastating. We have not lost at one 
time seven lives but we have lost lives.
  Caesar's Palace, this great resort--I can remember rains that washed 
away everything in the parking lot. It was just washed away as if they 
were toothpicks.
  The Tropicana-Flamingo Wash in Nevada is the fastest growing 
community in the Nation. We have been able to save lives and huge 
amounts of property by virtue of the fact we have flood control 
projects going on there as we speak. It has cost a lot of money, but we 
have saved a lot of lives; and that is for what the Federal Government 
has an obligation, to assist local governments. There has been local 
money put in it, too.
  The Everglades: I have seen the Everglades. I really do not 
understand them because I understand the desert. I understand aridity. 
I understand when it does not rain much. I understand out of my little 
home in Searchlight I have creosote bushes that are not very tall that 
are 100 years old. They do not grow very much. So I do not really 
understand the Everglades. I am fascinated by them. But it is water 
intensive. It is as water intensive as the desert is not water 
intensive.
  We have worked hard with the Senators from Florida on a project-by-
project basis to take care of that. It is now a huge priority not only 
of the Congress, as it has been in the past, but of the administration. 
I think part of that could be that Jeb Bush is Governor. It does not 
matter. It is an important project that the Federal Government should 
be involved in--and we are. There is a lot of money in this bill for 
the Everglades.
  Not far from where we stand is the Chesapeake Bay. Books have been 
written about the Chesapeake Bay. It is a wonder of nature. But because 
of the growth that is occurring in this area, the Chesapeake Bay has 
been threatened. The health of that great body of water has been 
threatened. It affects Maryland and Virginia very much. The bay is 
threatened as a natural resource.

  Senators Mikulski, Sarbanes, Warner, and Allen have aggressively 
sought money to restore that waterway to what it used to be so oysters 
can be harvested there and not make people sick. The oyster industry in 
Maryland and Virginia is huge, but it has not been as huge recently 
because of the condition of that bay. The restoration of the beds at 
relatively low cost, we believe, will ultimately generate hundreds of 
millions of dollars in economic benefit and jobs. This is a water 
project.
  The Port of Los Angeles: We move from the Chesapeake Bay 3,000 miles 
to the Port of Los Angeles. The administration had made a decision to 
stretch this out. The problem we have found with these promises is that 
even though it sounds OK, you stretch it out and it winds up costing 
much more money. You are better off doing less projects and doing them 
well. Congress has funded this project very aggressively and has saved 
the Federal Government 25 percent of the total project cost and has 
accelerated the economic benefits to California.
  So these are just four examples of water projects. But there are many 
more. I am happy we have worked together with our members, our 
Senators, and, of course, many requests from people in the House, to do 
what we could with these projects.
  Even with the additional funding the committee has added, we are 
still hundreds of millions of dollars shy of current year levels. We 
are also shy of the House mark. The other body was able to artificially 
raise their numbers for the Foreign Bureau by moving defense dollars in 
these nondefense accounts. We cannot do that. Under Senate rules, we 
cannot do that. In my opinion, not only the budget resolution but 
common sense does not allow us and should not allow us to move these 
funds back and forth.
  But I will say to everyone who is listening, in the past, the water 
numbers have always gotten better for everyone as we have moved along 
the process; that is, we hope we can do a better job when we get to 
conference. There is no guarantee of that, but we will work on that.
  Our bill provides about $25 billion in budget authority and 
approximately $24.7 billion in outlays. When you work with Senator 
Domenici, you always have to make sure the outlays are smaller than the 
budget authority. This bill exceeds the President's total request by 
$2.6 billion.
  Let's talk about a few of the areas. The Army Corps of Engineers: The 
Senate bill provides $4.3 billion, which is $405 million above the 
President's request but $236 million below the current year level. Due 
to the funding constraints, this bill contains no new construction 
starts and no new environmental infrastructure projects.
  The intent in drafting the bill was to continue to focus on ongoing 
construction and operations and maintenance projects at appropriate 
levels. The committee is eager to avoid stretching out schedules and 
costs on projects that are already underway. Any new construction 
starts will have to be considered in conference. We will do what we can 
at that time.
  A lot of people are very concerned about things they want to do. I 
have a lot of familiarity with the Bureau of Reclamation because they 
have had such a big presence in the State of Nevada. The very first 
project in the history of the Bureau of Reclamation was called the New 
Lands Project in 1902. It took place in Nevada. It is still there. The 
Senate's bill provides $884 million, which is $64 million above the 
President's request and $67 million above the current year level.
  This funding for the Bureau is higher than it has been for many 
years. It is higher because of CALFED. This is a big project in 
California. It is a reclamation project. The State of California has 
spent billions of dollars on it already. The House put nothing in the 
bill for that. Senator Domenici and I put $40 million in this bill for 
the CALFED and CALFED-related projects. The subcommittee has funded 
CALFED-related projects using existing authorizations under other 
accounts. Senators Feinstein and Boxer have both been very tireless 
advocates for the Bay-Delta Program. Senator Domenici and I are both 
delighted to provide substantial funding.
  The Department of Energy: We in Nevada have great familiarity with 
the Department of Energy. Nevada has been the place for 50 years where 
almost 1,000 nuclear devices have been set off in the desert--most of 
them underground but not all of them. I know about the Department of 
Energy. This bill contains over $20 billion for the Department of 
Energy. This is $2.1 billion over the level of the President's request 
and $1.9 billion over last year's level. Most of this additional 
funding is being used to provide adequate funding for the National 
Nuclear Security Administration, to enhance funding for the 
Environmental Management Program, and to add funding for the renewable 
energy program.
  Senator Domenici and I have received a letter signed by nearly two-
thirds of our colleagues calling for more money for renewable energy 
programs. Our bill takes care of that. Our bill provides $435 million, 
or $160 million above the President's request and $60 million above the 
current year level. In a year when our Nation has struggled with energy 
production and distribution issues, I am pleased to be able to enhance 
funding levels for these important research and development issues.
  Consistent with the budget resolution, this bill provides $6.1 
billion to the National Nuclear Security Administration for stockpile 
stewardship activities. This funding is $705 million over the 
President's request and $1.05 billion over the current year level. I am 
only going to speak a little while

[[Page S7673]]

about the National Nuclear Security Administration, known as NNSA. I 
defer to Senator Domenici on this subject. Senator Domenici was the 
primary congressional architect of the creation of the National Nuclear 
Security Administration. He worked tirelessly to get it authorized and 
has been dogged in his pursuit of funding to make sure that this 
important organization gets the resources it needs to succeed. To his 
credit, he convinced his colleagues on the Budget Committee that the 
safeguarding and rehabilitation of the Nation's nuclear weapons was a 
critical issue that has been underadressed and underfunded in recent 
years. Senators Byrd and Stevens followed up with appropriation 
resources designed to support the levels in the budget resolution.
  This morning I spoke to the interns for Senators Lincoln and 
Hutchinson of Arkansas. I don't know how many interns there were--maybe 
50--a lot of young men and women. One of the young people asked me: 
What do you think is the most important problem facing the world? I 
thought for a minute. I said: Nuclear weapons. I really do believe that 
with the deteriorating condition of the former Soviet Union, Russia's 
nuclear stockpile, and the responsibilities we have, that is a very 
important issue. I can't think of anything more important for my 
grandchildren than to make sure they live in a safe world.
  One of these weapons that we control and certainly one that the 
Soviet Union controls could accidentally go off. It would be 
devastating. It would make Chernobyl look like nothing. Chernobyl was 
just a nuclear reactor gone bad. We are talking about a nuclear weapon 
gone bad. I believe that is the No. 1 problem facing the world. We have 
a number of different ways of addressing it. We have to spend more 
money on terrorism. There are efforts being made for a nuclear shield 
for this country. But what we are talking about in this bill is doing 
what we can to make our nuclear stockpile safe and reliable. Our bill 
spends some money, maybe not enough, to work on the Russians to see if 
we can help them.
  I have to admit, I was a skeptic when Senator Domenici and others 
approached me about the creation of this autonomous organization 
several years ago. I thought it was a partisan ploy to maybe embarrass 
the administration. But as it turned out, it is working very well. I 
have come to believe Senator Domenici was right.
  One of the people who has done a good job of convincing me of that is 
the person running that agency. We as a country, as a world, are so 
fortunate that a retired general would take charge of this operation. 
He believes in it. He is a very competent, dedicated, patriotic 
American. With him heading this office, we should all go to sleep at 
night resting well that everything possible is being done to make sure 
we do have a safe and reliable nuclear stockpile. I am going to do 
everything I can to give him the resources he needs to do his job. He 
has a job that is very difficult.
  I am also, of course, holding him accountable for getting the job 
done. I have been a long-time critic of cost overruns and management 
incompetence within the weapons complex. I know General Gordon will 
take these enhanced resources and use them to get some fresh blood and 
fresh thinking going on within the Department of Energy.
  I am not going to go into more detail. I know Senator Domenici will 
speak about this, since this is his so-called baby. It has grown up and 
is about to become a teenager. It is something to which the Senator can 
speak with more authority than I.
  Finally, I am very pleased to report that the committee has made 
great strides in restoring and enhancing the devastating cuts made in 
the Environmental Management Program at DOE. This Senate bill provides 
$7.23 billion, $900 million above the President's request and $450 
million above the current level. The biggest beneficiaries of these 
additional clean-up dollars are the Hanford, Washington site, hundreds 
of millions of dollars; Savannah River site, almost $200 million, that 
is in South Carolina; Idaho, over $150 million; Ohio and Kentucky, tens 
of millions of dollars.
  As with water programs, I realize there are never enough resources we 
can spend to clean up the legacy of the cold war and other activities, 
but we have done our best.
  These are some of the highlights, from my perspective, of this bill. 
It is a bill I have learned to like. It is a bill I have grown to 
understand. I have grown to acknowledge the importance it has to our 
country. I hope my colleagues will realize how hard we have worked on 
this legislation.
  Senator Domenici and I would like to have a cutoff time for the 
filing of amendments. We tried tomorrow at 11 and 12, and we have 
received objections to that. We are here. If somebody wants to offer 
amendments, they can certainly do that. They have to have offsets or 
figure out some way to fund them because we are down to the nubs. We 
have no more money. If people don't like the way we have worked the 
bill, it is their privilege to come forward with amendments.
  I do think it would be in everyone's interest to have a finite list 
of amendments filed at an appropriate time. If anyone has any 
suggestions when that should be, Senator Domenici and I are open for 
discussion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, let me first acknowledge the wonderful 
cooperation that exists between the chairman and this Senator as 
ranking member. I believe under the circumstances and considering the 
variety of things this subcommittee has to fund, we have done a pretty 
good job. I couldn't ask for more understanding than I have received 
from the distinguished Senator, the chairman of this subcommittee.
  I believe our staff has worked together, and I hope I have been 
equally considerate and concerned about issues of importance to the 
good Senator from Nevada.
  As a result of this effort, we are together in trying to get this 
bill passed and get it off to conference and getting these issues 
resolved as soon as possible.
  Let me say to my good friend, he was talking about a flood that 
occurred in the State of Nevada in one of those dry rivers where for 
most of the year no water runs. But then you have a little cloudburst 
up in the mountains and these dry rivers turn into flooded, huge water 
resources plowing down the hills right into housing. In our State we 
call these dry rivers a Spanish name, ``arroyos.''
  In my home city of Albuquerque, I was pleased to serve 4 years as the 
city councilman, sort of chairman of the commission, which made me the 
closest thing to a mayor as you could have. I remember one Sunday 
afternoon in the year 1968. I was very young. I had just been on this 
council as chairman for awhile. It started raining Sunday afternoon. I 
called up one of my good friends on the city council who knew more 
about the details of the streets and everything else than anybody in 
the city.
  I called him up and said, ``Harry, this rain is coming down in the 
wrong places; something is going to happen.'' He said, ``Where are 
you?'' He picked me up and we rode around. Rain kept coming down harder 
and harder, and these dry rivers started to show a little trickle. Four 
hours later, we were riding the streets of Albuquerque and big manhole 
covers over the tunnels that carried water underground to avoid floods 
were standing or dancing on the water. The water raised those man holes 
up 4 or 5 feet and stood them up while the place got flooded. We saw 
more and more of them. I told my friend, ``This is a real problem.'' He 
said, ``No, things will be all right.'' Finally, 2 hours later, we got 
a call from the police chief. He said that in one whole piece of our 
city, maybe as many as 10,000 homes were under water. They had water in 
the kitchens, close to the tops of the stoves. It was a gigantic flow 
of water that came down these dry arroyos.
  I remember coming here with a group of Albuquerqueans. I was city 
councilman then. We appeared before the Public Works Committee, which 
had to authorize the project after which it went on to get 
appropriated. We came up to ask if the Federal Government would expand 
a program that was about to run out so we could build these rivers so 
they would be safe. Now if one flies over Albuquerque, as you approach 
the airport you see two giant cement waterways that are around the 
edges of

[[Page S7674]]

the town--huge. They catch the water in these dry rivers up by the 
mountain and run them down these no longer dry rivers, but they are 
cement-lined ditches, big ones. Water comes down, and now you can be 
riding around and your commissioner friend Harry can say, ``It is 
raining hard, Mr. Chairman,'' and you can say, ``It might hurt 
something else, but it won't flood anymore.''
  That is the kind of thing we pay for in this bill for hundreds of 
places across America. We hope we get them before they flood, but 
sometimes we don't. Sometimes we pay for them after they flood. But to 
make sure we are not building white elephants, we require a very 
substantial match. The community has to come up with money. That is the 
way we finally decide it must be important, because they are not just 
asking us to have a construction project, they are going to pay for 
part of it.
  My good friend, the chairman, outlined water issues. Clearly, there 
is no end to the requests in our country for this. But we have the 
rule: We don't fund them unless they have been authorized. The 
committee has to work on them and have hearings. That bothers a lot of 
our Senators because there is such a backlog of existing authorized 
programs that we don't catch up very often. We have many billions 
backlogged that we can't pay for. But we will keep working on it.
  Overall, the proposed fiscal year 2002 energy and water bill is a 
very fair and balanced bill that makes important investments in our 
national security, our energy security, our economic prosperity, and in 
the health of our environment. This bill is an important step in 
implementing the President's National Energy Policy.
  The Senate bill in total provides $25 billion in budget authority and 
approximately $24.7 billion in outlays. The bill exceeds the 
President's request by $2.6 billion, and exceeds the House bill by $1.4 
billion. Without going into detail about all of the many great things 
in this bill, I would like to focus my remarks on two broad areas: (1) 
What this bill does for our energy security, and (2) What this bill 
does for our national security.
  For our nation's energy security, this bill represents a major step 
in fulfilling the President's commitment to a balanced and diversified 
energy policy--particularly in the area of expanding the supply of 
clean energy from renewable sources and nuclear power.
  But before If focus specifically on what this bill does in those two 
areas, I want to take this opportunity to dispel two persistent myths 
that have been unfairly associated with the President's National Energy 
Policy. First, that the policy focuses only on supply and ignores 
conservation and efficiency. And second, that the policy fails to 
address the possible threat of global warming.
  The policy is so clear on the first point that those who argue simply 
haven't read it. There are more policy recommendations impacting 
conservation and efficiency than supply. Over $6 billion in proposed 
tax reductions are targeted at conservation and efficiency.
  Furthermore, the whole policy is based on substantial gains from 
improvements in conservation and efficiency. If we maintained the 
current ratio between energy demand and the gross domestic product 
(GDP), we would need 77 percent more energy in 2020 than we are 
producing today--77 percent more. The National Energy Policy recommends 
conservation and efficiency measures that would reduce the required 
increase by over half--resulting in us only needing to produce 29 
percent more energy by 2020. That is a substantial but necessary 
commitment to conversation and efficiency.
  Let me turn to that second myth, that the policy doesn't address the 
possible threat of global warming. Once again, those who have read the 
policy shouldn't make that statement. The policy has strong support for 
clean energy sources.
  Renewable sources are encouraged in many ways, including tax credits 
for wind, biomass, solar, and the purchase of clean fuel vehicles. The 
policy supports a major research program in clean-coal technologies, 
advocates increased funding for renewable energy R&D and recognizes 
nuclear energy for its very positive environmental benefits.
  It is in these last two areas, renewable energy and nuclear energy, 
that the energy and water bill takes a major step in implementing the 
President's national energy policy.
  The renewable energy programs are funded in this bill at $435 
million. That's $60 million and 16 percent above the current year 
level. There's no question that renewable sources can and should play a 
larger role in our energy supply, and this budget will accelerate 
progress towards that vision.
  Within that renewable budget, several programs are slated for major 
increases. Just to give a few examples:
  Research on hydrogen-based technologies is up almost 30 percent over 
last year. That research may lead to decreased use of petroleum 
products in transportation, certainly a critical goal.
  Research on high temperature superconductivity is boosted by almost 
20 percent. That's a technology that may enable dramatic reduction of 
losses we now experience in electric transmission lines and motors.
  Geothermal research is 20 percent above last year and wind systems 
are up more than 10 percent.
  Nuclear energy received significant increases as well in this bill. I 
strongly agree with the President's National Energy Policy in its 
recommendation supporting the expansion of nuclear energy in the United 
States. Nuclear plants offer emission-free power sources, help maintain 
diversity of fuel supply, enhance energy security, meet growing 
electricity demand, and protect consumers against volatility in the 
electricity and natural gas markets.
  This bill pushes nuclear power forward with a number of important 
initiatives:
  The bill includes $19 million for university research reactor 
support--an increase of $7 million over current year--to make sure our 
country has the educational resources necessary for an economy that 
continues to rely substantially on nuclear power.
  The bill includes $9 million--an increase of $4 million over current 
year--to expand a program to improve the reliability and productivity 
of our 103 existing nuclear power plants.
  The bill continues the highly successful Nuclear Energy Research 
Initiative (NERI) at $38 million--$3 million more than current year.
  The bill provides $14 million--an increase of $7 million--to continue 
work begun last year on advanced reactor development, including 
research on generation IV reactors--reactors that will be passively 
safe, produce less waste, and reduce any proliferation concerns.
  The bill provides $10 million for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
to prepare to license new nuclear power plants.
  The bill continues an R&D program we started two years ago on ways to 
reduce the quantity and toxicity of spent nuclear fuel--called 
``transmutation''. This technology, which was recently highlighted in 
the President's National Energy Policy, will be continued at $70 
million in 2002.
  Let me emphasize that I used the phrase ``spent fuel'' rather than 
``waste'' to refer to the materials coming out of our reactors. Right 
now our national policy calls for disposing of those materials as waste 
in a future repository. But we need to remember that these materials 
still contain 95 percent of their initial energy content.
  I've been concerned for years that it is highly debatable for us to 
decide that future generations will have no need for this rich energy 
source. With improved management strategies, possibly involving 
reprocessing and transmutation, we can recycle that material for 
possible later use, recover far more of the energy, and dramatically 
reduce the toxicity and volume of the materials that are finally 
declared to be waste.
  As a final thought on energy security, Mr. President, I want to share 
with my Senate colleagues a vision, which is encompassed in this bill 
and which I've shared with President Bush.
  We need to reach beyond the debate over Kyoto with a blueprint that 
provides the tools to combat global warming.
  I'm convinced that we can have growth and prosperity in America 
without global warming.
  And I'm equally convinced that we can help provide those same 
benefits for the world.

[[Page S7675]]

  I propose that we provide worldwide leadership to eliminate the 
threat of global warming by a commitment to prosperity and growth 
through clean energy.
  And I further propose that we accomplish this goal through 
partnerships with our friends and allies, especially those in 
developing countries.
  I've specifically urged the President to lead this new initiative, to 
accelerate our own research and build international partnerships for 
joint development of all the clean sources of energy--renewables, clean 
fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and hydrogen-based fuels. Then as we 
transition to improved technologies in the future, our partner nations 
will also be building up their energy infrastructure with the latest 
and cleanest technologies.
  Last year's energy and water development bill called for improvements 
in the federal government's role in international development, 
demonstration, and deployment of advanced clean energy technologies.
  With this new bill and the President's policy, our nation is 
developing a suite of energy supplies that will provide us with clean, 
reliable, economic energy far into the future. But I continue to 
believe that we should be looking beyond our own borders.
  I submit that we should be seizing every opportunity to help the 
developing nations around the world achieve much higher standards of 
living. They simply can't do that without reliable electricity 
supplies.
  Each nation will make their own choices for fuel sources, exploiting 
their own strengths. We have abundant natural gas--and it will make a 
huge contribution to a cleaner future for our country. But every nation 
needs diverse energy supplies, not a singular reliance on one source. 
Other nations may be well positioned to exploit their solar or wind 
resources--through this program these nations can make the choices best 
for their needs.
  The leadership shown by Senator Byrd on clean coal technologies 
matches this vision very well. Some other nation's have immense coal 
resources, through this vision they can benefit by Senator Byrd's 
efforts to advance clean coal technologies.
  We can leave the poorest countries to their own resources to develop 
whatever energy they can, or we can offer substantial help to partner 
with these nations to help them develop sources that are not only 
reliable and reasonably priced, but also clean.
  It's strongly in our self interest to do this. After all, we all 
share the same air. And in addition, countries with strong economies 
are our best choice for trading partners
  Mr. President, let me state again how proud I am to have worked on 
this bill with Senator Reid. With this bill, we'll be making real 
progress on the technologies to fuel our, and perhaps the world's 
economies of the future.
  For our nation's national security, this bill makes a major 
investment in solving serious problems in the nuclear weapons complex. 
With the leadership and resources included in this bill, many of those 
problems are going to get fixed.
  The bill includes $6.05 billion for the nuclear weapons (stockpile 
stewardship) activities of the NNSA, that is $705 million over the 
President's request, $925 million over the House level, and $1.05 
billion over the current year level.
  I want to again commend Senator Reid, and our full committee 
chairman, first Senator Stevens and Now Senator Byrd, for recognizing 
the serious problems in the nuclear weapons complex and providing the 
resources to fix those problems.
  This bill makes three major improvements on the President's budget 
request for nuclear weapons.
  First, infrastructure. We know from the subcommittee's hearing on 
infrastructure earlier this year, that our nuclear weapons facilities 
have degraded to the point that it will take billions of dollars to 
modernize for the future.
  The average age of the facilities where we do nuclear weapons work is 
over 40 years.
  We will need to spend an additional $300-$500 million a year for the 
next 17 years over currently planned levels to refurbish the weapons 
complex to perform its basic mission. These expenditures will be 
required even if the nuclear stockpile is dramatically smaller.
  If we do not take action on these infrastructure problems 
immediately, we will not be able to meet the Department of Defense 
schedules for refurbishing three main weapons systems representing over 
50 percent of our stockpile. We will not have the scientific facilities 
required to certify weapons. Our technicians and scientists will 
continue to work in unsafe facilities-increasing health risks and the 
number of safety related shutdowns.
  Although the work must begin immediately, the budget request included 
no funds to begin such an initiative. Therefore, the bill before the 
Senate includes $300 million to begin a major facilities improvement 
program in fiscal year 2002 at facilities in South Carolina, Tennessee, 
Missouri, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, and California.
  The second major improvement on the administration's budget request 
is that the bill provides additional funding to rebuild current 
weapons.
  The average age of weapons in the stockpile is now approaching 18 
years--most were designed for a life of no more than 20 years. Many 
weapons components degrade substantially over time and have to be 
replaced. The Joint Department of Defense/NNSA Nuclear Weapons Council 
has recognized the fact that most of our weapons will have to be 
rebuilt, but funds were not requested to do so.
  Therefore, the bill includes an additional $295 million in fiscal 
year 2002 to get the NNSA on track to rebuild weapons on the schedule 
required by the Department of Defense.
  The third major improvement on the President's request is that this 
bill fully funds pit production on the required schedule.
  We must soon have the capability to produce plutonium pits for 
weapons, a capability we lost when Rocky Flats was closed down in 1989. 
Plutonium pits are the ``triggers'' for nuclear weapons, that 
occasionally must be replaced. Today, we are the only nuclear power 
without the ability to produce them. The budget request puts off 
indefinitely our ability to deliver a certified pit to the military, 
but this bill adds $110 million to get the program back on track.
  Finally, there are a series of programs at NNSA that may be just as 
important to eliminating or controlling the global nuclear danger--
these programs are to reduce the threat of nuclear weapon proliferation 
around the world.
  The administration proposed deep cuts in this area for fiscal year 
2002, even though a blue-ribbon review led by Senator Howard Baker and 
Lloyd Cutler recently concluded . . .

       The most urgent unmet national security threat to the 
     United States today is the danger that weapons of mass 
     destruction or weapon-usable material in Russia could be 
     stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation states and 
     used against American troops abroad or citizens at home.

  The report also concluded that . . .

       Current nonproliferation programs of the DOE . . . have 
     achieved impressive results thus far, but their limited 
     mandate and funding fall short of what is required to address 
     adequately the threat.

  I am pleased that this bill adds over $100 million to the important 
nonproliferation work the NNSA carries out in Russia and other 
countries of the former Soviet Union. These programs to control the 
material and expertise necessary to make weapons of mass destruction 
address problems identified as ``the most urgent unmet national 
security threat to the United States today.''
  Once again, Senator Reid, I want to commend you for a balanced bill. 
I do not agree with every aspect of the bill, but I cannot urgue with 
the fair manner in which you have put it together.
  I strongly support the bill, and urge all Members of the Senate to do 
likewise.
  Let me proceed as quickly as I can to summarize this bill. First, I 
am very pleased to join with Chairman Reid in considering this fiscal 
year 2002 Energy and Water bill. I note that in the chair is a new 
Senator. I would think that he might wonder what in the world is an 
appropriation bill called Energy and Water. Well, my good friend, the 
new Senator from New Jersey, will never sit down and rationally decide 
what is in this bill. What is in it has been decided between the House 
and Senate as one of the 13 subcommittees of appropriation, and there 
is no rationale to

[[Page S7676]]

it. In it we fund water development projects, flood protection 
projects, the harbors and rivers that need the Federal Government to 
help. But on the other end, believe it or not, the entire nuclear 
weapons development, preservation, and research for nuclear weapons is 
also funded in this bill. It doesn't come under the rubric of energy. 
Why is it here? It is here because that kind of activity was brought to 
the Energy Department when the Energy Department was created. This 
subcommittee pays for that.
  So, overall, this is a very balanced bill. It covers what I have 
alluded to. I have great detail with me about what has concerned us and 
why we have had to fund the part of this that is for nuclear weaponry 
at a higher level than the President. I am very hopeful that the staff 
at the White House and the staff at OMB, who have looked at this since 
putting their budget out, will understand that some of this new money 
we had to put into the part of this bill that concerns itself with a 
safe and reliable nuclear stockpile. And remember, Mr. President, every 
time you say that, you can put a parenthesis in and you can say, 
without underground testing, because we have voted not to test 
underground. If you test, it makes it much easier to determine safety, 
to determine reliability. But we have determined we are not going to do 
that, and still we are going to spend money and put the finest 
resources in America to work on the science and physics and 
computerization part of maintaining this very, very serious and almost 
unbelievable thing called the American nuclear weapons stockpile.
  My good friend, Senator Reid, has been a marvelous student of this. 
We have all had to learn together. I have more of a genuine parochial 
reason, because two of the three laboratories frequently called the 
nuclear laboratories--not exactly the right name--are in my State. 
There is Los Alamos. Everybody knows that is where we did our first 
nuclear weaponry work--atomic weapon work. It was a mountain, but there 
is a city there now. In Albuquerque is Sandia Labs, an engineering 
laboratory, which is part of this. The third one is in the State of 
California. The three of them do much in addition to the work on 
nuclear. There are great researchers who are on the cutting edge of 
much of the science of the future in terms of energy needs and the 
like. So that is in this bill.
  And then, obviously, since it is an energy bill, it has an awful lot 
in it about the energy research and development that is occurring in 
the Department of Energy. First, let me quickly say that part of this 
is the implementation of energy policy.
  While we are still waiting around to debate and pass judgment on 
whether we are going to have some tax incentives that the President 
asked for in terms of developing new and different kinds of energy 
called ``renewables,'' or whether or not we are going to decide to open 
up more of the public domain to the development of gas and oil; in this 
bill, we get along with getting some of these things paid for and done, 
which everybody knows we should be doing. But it is most interesting--
and this is an opportunity to speak for a moment about the President's 
energy policy in one regard. There is a lot said about: what about 
conservation, and what about saving our energy? I am reminded that in 
preparation for this activity, in marking up this bill, I chose to read 
the President's policy in its entirety. I want to cite one piece, 
because there is a lot said about there not being enough conservation 
in this policy, not enough things that push us to conserve and save. 
Well, I have come to the following conclusion, and if I am wrong, 
anybody that would like to read the policy and discuss it, I would be 
glad to do so.

  As this energy policy tells us what we need in the future, up to the 
year 2020, it says that we could have to produce 77 percent more to 
meet our needs over this next 20 years--just for reasonable needs. But 
would you believe that a huge portion of that possible need is 
projected to come from conservation and saving energy, such that, of 
the 77 percent, only 29 percent is from new production? So if you do 
the arithmetic and subtract them, it is pretty obvious that there is a 
very large amount that is expected by way of either legislation or 
conduct in our country to save and conserve energy, along with 
increasing production of various types of energy.
  Let me talk about one. I am very pleased that both Senator Reid and I 
and our staffs worked very hard on what's called renewable energy 
programs. Because of the Senator's dedication and us working together 
on this, we are funding the renewable energy programs at $435 million 
in this bill. That is 16 percent higher than this year. There is no 
question that renewable resources can and should play a larger role in 
our energy supply, and we push that or accelerate that in this bill. 
Within this renewable budget, several programs are slated for major 
increases, and I am going to tick some of them off.
  Hydrogen-based technology is up 30 percent over last year. Some 
people think this whole area of hydrogen-originated energy sources is 
one of our real solutions to clean and healthy production of energy 
without having any adverse impact on global warming. The research may 
lead to a decrease in the use of petroleum products in transportation.
  We also have superconductivity and geothermal, both have 20-percent 
increases. All of these can have an incremental positive impact on 
helping us meet our energy needs without having a major impact on 
global warming in the future.
  Incidentally, the President has suggested we should move ahead with 
nuclear and not abandon it. Nuclear energy has received a significant 
increase in this bill. I strongly agree with the President's national 
energy policy and his recommendations supporting the expansion of 
nuclear energy in the United States.
  I will state once--and if I have a chance I will do it a number of 
times--nuclear power in its current form and future generations, new 
generations, of nuclear powerplants do not contribute to global 
warming. In other words, the future is protected from the global 
warming pollution that comes from many of our traditional energy 
sources so that the evolution, development, and research in the areas 
of nuclear power can move us ahead in such a way as to provide energy 
for growth, development, and prosperity for America and for our 
industrial friends in the world and, yes, indeed, for those countries 
which do not yet have much of an economic base.
  We can produce clean energy for the future. With renewables, nuclear, 
and other forms of energy joining together, we can say to the world: 
You can grow and prosper. The poor countries will have an equal 
opportunity to do that, and we will not have to reduce growth, we will 
not have to put on caps, we will just have to use our ingenuity and 
science better.
  There are a number of things we did to let America take a good, solid 
look at what the next generation of nuclear powerplants or even the 
next one after that might look like and how it will help.
  I want to share with my friend, Senator Reid, and those who are 
paying attention to what we are doing today, a portion of my comments 
today which I choose to call ``Reaching Beyond Kyoto.'' I, frankly, 
believe the President of the United States has a rare opportunity to 
lead the world beyond Kyoto.
  I say to my fellow Senators, I have talked to the President about 
this very issue. I have suggested it is a rare opportunity for him to 
lead the world in reaching beyond Kyoto, and I will talk about that for 
a minute.
  This is a vision, and part of it is in this bill because this is what 
we do in this bill. It says that we need to reach beyond the debate 
over Kyoto with a blueprint that provides tools to combat global 
warming. Further, we should ask the world to join as our partners and 
move ahead,
  I am convinced we can have growth and prosperity in America without 
global warming. I am equally convinced we can help provide these same 
benefits for the world. I propose we provide worldwide leadership to 
eliminate the threat of global warming by a commitment to prosperity 
and growth through clean energy, and I further propose we accomplish 
this goal through partnerships with our friends and allies, especially 
those in developing countries.

[[Page S7677]]

  I have specifically urged the President to lead this new initiative 
to accelerate our research and build international partnerships for 
joint development of all clean sources of energy--renewables, clean 
fossil fuels which our distinguished chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee, Senator Byrd, alludes to frequently as it relates to coal--
nuclear energy, and hydrogen-based fuels.

  As we transition to improved technologies in the future, our partner 
nations will also be building up their energy infrastructure with the 
latest and cleanest technologies. And, yes, there is no question, then, 
that we can send a message that the poor countries in the world can 
grow and prosper. As a matter of fact, they, too, can participate in 
this abundance of growth and prosperity for their people without 
adversely affecting global warming.
  Last year's energy and water development bill called for improvements 
in the Federal Government's role in international development, 
demonstration, and advanced clean energy technologies.
  With this new bill which is before the Senate, and the President's 
policy, our Nation is developing a suite of energy supplies that will 
provide us with clean, reliable, economic energy for the future.
  I continue to believe we should be looking beyond our own borders. I 
submit that we should be seizing every opportunity to help the 
developing nations around the world achieve much higher standards of 
living. They simply cannot do that without reliable electrical 
supplies. I believe we can help them with this global approach of 
partnerships around the world to develop this technology and produce 
the next generation of nuclear powerplants. But we should not start on 
that path unless we set the goals for achievement of what they will 
look like, what they will do, and what they will not do.
  It is the same with clean coal technology: Set the goals and then 
let's achieve them in this world so we can all grow and prosper. We all 
know we have an abundance of energy supplies in our country. We have 
natural gas. And it will make a huge contribution for our country. But 
every nation needs diverse energy supplies, not a singular reliance on 
a single source.
  Leadership has been shown by Senator Byrd with clean coal 
technologies that match this vision very well. Some other nations have 
immense coal resources. Through this vision, they can benefit by 
Senator Byrd's efforts to advance clean coal technologies. Through this 
bill, we can fund renewables and ask our President to join worldwide 
with efforts to push renewables even more and to greater ends. And it 
is the same with all of those energies that have no effect, no impact 
on global warming.
  I can say, it may very well be, within a very short period of time, a 
nuclear powerplant will be developed. It will be a small little plant 
instead of a thousand megawatts. It might be 50 or 100 megawatts. It 
will be a module. It will be self-contained. It will have no chance of 
having a meltdown. Just by the physical facts about its evolution and 
development it cannot, it will not. We might not have to touch it for 
25 or 30 years.
  Those are things we can work on as a criteria for development and 
growth and then set our great scientists in the private and public 
sector, with others in the world, to achieve this goal. What a great 
opportunity in the midst of a world that is frightened about whether we 
can grow, whether poor people can get rich, where the poor countries 
have to remain undeveloped because they cannot contribute to global 
warming. We will say we can all grow and prosper. America hasn't 
stopped growing and prospering, but we can do it without affecting 
global warming if we just say let's take a lead, let's do this, let's 
ask our greatest companies, our best laboratories, our greatest 
scientists, led by America, let's put some money in each year in a 
consortium-type arrangement to get this done.
  If I sound like I am excited about something, obviously for some of 
you I have not even yet reached anything like an excited pitch, but in 
any event, I am because I believe it is a rare opportunity to take the 
genius of science--and I might say, I have a bias and prejudice but I 
think it will work. I think we have nuclear power for a reason. I don't 
think we have developed nuclear power to throw it away. I believe we 
can develop another generation of nuclear power plants that can help 
this entire world prosper and put global warming behind us.

  Then we can ask, what is next? What have to be next are growth and 
opportunities, and not just for us. We say to the world, let's be free. 
But, we don't want people to think we are for them being free and poor. 
We are for them being free and affluent, to grow and have what we have. 
It cannot be done without better sources of clean energy.
  I believe this bill has things in it which, if put together by the 
President in a partnership arrangement, I think we could see real 
daylight and perhaps might be able to set some goals.
  My last comments will be very brief and have to do with national 
security. As I said when I started, what a peculiar bill, energy and 
water. Who would guess that sandwiched between those two words, energy 
and water, are the U.S. national security interests in nuclear weapons.
  We have a national policy, voted on this Senate floor on an amendment 
by the distinguished Senator Hatfield from Oregon. We don't test our 
nuclear weapons underground nor do we test them at all. We don't do 
that anymore. That used to be the easy way. I say that because today it 
looks easy. That is the way we used to determine reliability and 
safety. We don't do that anymore. We don't test underground. We have 
something to take its place. We have a whole body of science and 
computerization that we put together. It is now in the Department of 
Energy, and it has reached major nuclear laboratories. We fund a 
program called science-based stockpile stewardship. Stockpile is the 
nuclear weapons stockpile. We fund a part of the Department of Energy 
that is called the NNSA. My good friend, Senator Reid, alluded to it 
when he spoke of creating this new institution within the Department. 
The current leader is four-star General Gordon. He's doing a great job 
of pulling together and making sure there is one spokesman worried 
about the nuclear weapons aspects of the Department of Energy, 
reporting only to the Secretary. In a very real way he's making sure we 
do a better job with what we spend on this stockpile. Nonetheless, we 
have to spend money on it. The biggest difference between our budget 
and the President's budget is what to do with replenishing some of the 
physical facilities that are now old and broken down that are part of 
this NNSA.
  This bill says, let's get started in multiyear repair and 
replenishing of some of the facilities that are nearly 50 years old in 
which we ask the world's greatest scientists to work to help keep this 
program and do this very difficult job. It will take many years to 
replenish these physical facilities, these laboratories.
  In addition, there are specific items such as major improvements in 
the funding of pit production. You simply must soon have the capability 
to produce plutonium pits for weapons, a capability we lost when Rocky 
Flats was closed in 1989. We had to put extra money in this bill, in 
order to keep that program on the calendar on which it is expected to 
be. We have put these funds in because we know they are needed. Add it 
all up and we have a very well rounded bill covering mundane things as 
well as the complex and difficult.
  In closing, let me say, that as part of this Department of Energy, we 
have developed some great research laboratories and not just those 
created and involved in nuclear work. There are many others that work 
on various aspects of research in America, most in the fields of 
energy, but not all, where some of the very best scientists in the 
world and some of the very best basic science research activities take 
place.

  In summary, we think we have a bill that takes care of, as well as 
possible, water resource needs of our country. It takes care of the 
basic energy needs we can promote through the Energy Department in 
moving ahead with another generation of nuclear reactors. And it 
encourages more progress on renewables. Through this bill and another 
dealing with cleaning up our coal so we can use it cleanly, we can have 
a prosperous future without having a negative impact on global warming 
and the future of our country and the

[[Page S7678]]

world's people. We think we have done that fairly well.
  We have spent more than the President asked. We hope we will be able 
to explain to the White House and OMB why and how that was done. We 
will have time after the bill is debated to do that. In the meantime, 
as the amendments come forward, perhaps the White House will have some 
suggestions. I hope they don't ask us to change our vision. I think the 
vision in this bill is to move ahead with new sources of energy beyond 
Kyoto so we can say we are going to do it in a way that everyone will 
grow and prosper, so the poor can get rich in the world.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. We are on the energy and water bill. I know the Senator 
from Arizona wishes to speak.
  Mr. KYL. I want to take 30 seconds to compliment the Senator from New 
Mexico, and then I will ask unanimous consent to speak no more than 5 
minutes in morning business.
  Mr. REID. My friend from Oregon also wishes to speak for 20 minutes 
in morning business. I ask that the Senator from Arizona be recognized 
to speak for up to 10 minutes in morning business and the Senator from 
Oregon be recognized for up to 20 minutes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, what are 
you thinking in terms of the bill?
  Mr. REID. I will visit with you now.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. I will not take the full 10 minutes.
  I take 30 seconds to simply say, Senator Domenici each year has a 
significant responsibility, as well as the other Members of the 
subcommittee on which he sits, to put together a bill for energy and 
water. As he pointed out, a great deal of the jurisdiction of that 
subcommittee deals with our nuclear weapons program. Senator Domenici 
does not simply put together what he has been told is a good idea. He 
has taken a career to learn from these laboratories--a couple of which 
he represents, and the people in those laboratories--what is best in 
our national interests and what needs to done. It is not glorious work 
and there is no big political payoff. Very few people have the 
knowledge he does. He relies on people such as his staff, Clay Sell and 
Dr. Peter Lyons, a nuclear physicist from Los Alamos Laboratory, to 
assist him in developing the kind of plans that the Senate then needs 
to act upon, particularly with the comments about the development of 
nuclear energy that will be safe and that we need to promote for this 
country.
  I think he is absolutely right on the mark. I plan to join him in his 
efforts to promote that in the coming months.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. KYL. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I should have mentioned in my remarks, one of the 
Senators who has helped me in the many months that we engaged in trying 
to make the Department of Energy more focused with reference to our 
nuclear weapons problems was the distinguished Senator from Arizona. I 
thank him for that help. We are not over that hurdle yet. Indeed, 
General Gordon and that semiautonomous agency have not been totally 
formulated. They are not grown up yet and are still walking along, 
maybe comparing it to high school and the eighth grade. They still have 
to get the diploma. This bill should enhance it or give them some of 
the tools they claim they need.
  In the meantime, I thank the Senator for observations and comments 
regarding a world beyond Kyoto. Clearly, if we do this right, we can 
have an abundance of energy and there need be no atmospheric pollution; 
we can do it another way. Clearly, we can get it done.
  I thank the Senator for his observation.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. KYL. I yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Clinton). The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. The Senator from Arizona missed my brief statement today 
about how I had become a late believer in the work that he and Senator 
Domenici had done on the National Nuclear Security Administration. As 
you may recall, last year I fought that initially. As I said to Senator 
Domenici, I thought it was being done, initially, for reasons other 
than what it turned out to be. I commend the Senator from Arizona--I 
have already done that to Senator Domenici--for the great work being 
done by General Gordon and the people working with him. It certainly 
has been a step in the right direction.
  With the deep concern I have with the nuclear arsenal, I think there 
is not anything we could be more devoted to than making sure General 
Gordon has enough money and general resources to do what he has to do 
which is so important.

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