[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 106 (Thursday, July 26, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8276-S8277]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THE SPACEPORT EQUALITY ACT

  Mr. REID. Madam President, I am pleased to join my distinguished 
colleague from Florida, Senator Graham, as a sponsor of the Spaceport 
Equality Act.
  Space commercialization holds great promise for the development of 
new drugs, ultrapure materials with incredible strength and 
flexibility, and even space tourism. To make space commercialization a 
reality, the US needs to support the growth of its domestic commercial 
space launch facilities or ``spaceports.'' It's a sad state of affairs, 
but U.S. satellite manufacturers are facing increasing pressure to use 
foreign launch services due to a lack of a sufficient domestic launch 
capability.
  The purpose of the Spaceport Equality Act is to ensure a strong U.S. 
launch capability. This act will provide tax exempt status for 
spaceport facility bonds, just like we do for publicly-owned airports 
and seaports. The government will not be directly funding the 
commercial space transportation business, but creating the conditions 
necessary to stimulate private sector capital investment in these 
spaceports. Coupled with the development of ``reusable launch 
vehicles,'' these spaceports will be ``aero-space ports'' that will 
accommodate both air and space vehicles. Reusable launch vehicles are 
essential to reduce the cost of access to space by a factor of 10 to 
100 from its present level of $2000/pound.
  My home State of Nevada has an important role to play in space 
commercialization. As part of NASA's Space Launch Initiative, a public-
private team will use the Nevada Test Site for orbital flights. This 
sets the stage for commercial space operations in Nevada as early as 
2003-4.
  The Spaceport Equality Act simply puts spaceports on equal footing 
with airports by treating them the same for purposes of exempt facility 
bond rules. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation which is 
essential to opening the space frontier for continued civil exploration 
and commercial development.
  Mr. LUGAR. Madam President, earlier this month, the United States and 
the country of Kazakhstan successfully completed one of the most 
ambitious nonproliferation projects undertaken in history--the securing 
of one of the world's largest stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium 
under the auspices of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction 
program. The security surrounding some three tons of plutonium--
sufficient to make some 400 bombs--was enhanced and, commencing in 
1998, the fuel assemblies containing spent nuclear fuel were packaged 
to prevent theft.
  In August of 1998, I visited a torpedo factory in Almaty, then the 
capital of Kazakhstan, that had been converted to manufacture the big 
steel cannisters in which the plutonium-rich assemblies were packaged 
and sealed. The last cannister was sealed and lowered into a cooling 
pond in early July of this year.
  Last week, the Washington Times carried a special report by 
Christopher Pala on this program under the title of ``Kazakh Plutonium 
Stores Made Safe.'' I ask unanimous consent that this article be 
printed in the Record and urge all of my colleagues to inform 
themselves about a real success story in U.S.-Kazakhstan relations.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Times, July 21, 2001]

                   Kazakh Plutonium Stores Made Safe

                         (By Christopher Pala)

       Almaty, Kazakhstan.--U.S. officials last week voiced quiet 
     satisfaction after one of the world's largest stockpiles of 
     weapons-grade plutonium, located in a sensitive zone, was 
     successfully made theft-proof in what the Energy Department 
     called ``one of the world's largest and most successful 
     nonproliferation projects.''
       More than three tons of plutonium, enough to make about 400 
     bombs, had been stored in a fast-breeder reactor on the 
     Caspian Sea shore in security conditions one early visitor 
     described as similar to those of an office building.
       Today, the plutonium has been fully secured, said Trisha 
     Dedik, director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of 
     Nonproliferation Policy, in an interview July 13 in Almaty, 
     Kazakhstan's economic capital. ``It's been a great success.''
       A day earlier, Miss Dedik and others took part in a 
     ceremony at Aktau with Kazakh officials celebrating 
     completion of the project.
       The plutonium was produced by a BN-350 fast-breeder nuclear 
     reactor on the arid northwestern shore of the Caspian, a few 
     miles from the city of Aktau. Both the city and 350-megawatt 
     power plant on the Mangyshlak Peninsula, the first-ever 
     commercial breeder reactor, owed their location to 
     considerable uranium deposits that were mined nearby.
       The plutonium had been intended to be shipped to other 
     parts of the Soviet Union for use as fuel in other reactors 
     like it, but only one, the BN-600, was ever built. Located 
     near Yekaterinburg on the eastern slope of the Urals nearly 
     900 miles north-northeast of Aktau, it ultimately took little 
     or no plutonium from the BN-350, so the material just piled 
     up.
       The plant closed in 1999, at the end of its useful life.
       After 26 years of providing electricity and water (by 
     powering a desalination plant) to the Aktau region, the plant 
     had an accumulation of 3,000 15-foot cylinders, called fuel 
     assemblies, containing spent nuclear fuel.
       About 7,250 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium could be 
     extracted from the assemblies with relative ease, according 
     to the Energy Department.
       Nearly half the assemblies emitted little radiation and 
     could be safely handled by workers wearing light protection. 
     The other half were too ``hot'' to be handled by anything but 
     robots. All spent years in a cooling pond the size of a 
     football field at the plant.
       ``When I walked in there the first time back in 1995, it 
     had all the security of a modern office building,'' said 
     Fredrick Crane, an American physicist familiar with the 
     plant.
       ``It was a clean and well-run reactor,'' said Mr. Crane. 
     There were some guards, but otherwise all you needed was one 
     code, like in an airport terminal, and you were in.''
       With each fuel assembly weighing 300 pounds, a couple of 
     strong men with accomplices inside could spirit out the half-
     dozen cylinders it would take to make a nuclear bomb.
       ``It was attractive material, and it was accessible,'' said 
     Miss Dedik of the Energy Department.
       Just 500 miles to the south along the Caspian coastline 
     lies Iran and what U.S. officials say is a covert nuclear-
     weapons program. Eight hundred miles to the southeast is 
     Afghanistan, base and refuge of accused terrorist mastermind 
     Osama Bin Laden, and due west, straight across the Caspian, 
     Chechnya smolders.
       ``There are fast-breeder reactors in Western Europe and 
     Japan, but the plutonium produced there doesn't accumulate 
     like it did in Aktau. It's reprocessed pretty quickly,'' Miss 
     Dedik said.
       ``There just aren't any big stockpiles. Remember, most 
     weapons-grade plutonium is produced by dedicated reactors, 
     controlled by the military, and they're usually much better 
     guarded than this one was.''
       So in 1996, the government of President Nursultan 
     Nazarbayev, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the 
     United States quietly set up a program to immediately enhance 
     security and, starting in 1998, to package the fuel 
     assemblies to prevent theft.
       Miss Dedik and Mr. Crane were among several dozen Americans 
     who worked on the

[[Page S8277]]

     project, which was funded by the U.S. Cooperative Threat 
     Reduction Program under the Nunn-Lugar Act. The law was named 
     for its sponsors, Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican, 
     and then-Sen. Sam Nunn, Georgia Democrat.
       A torpedo factory in Almaty that had been converted to 
     civilian work was assigned to manufacture big steel canisters 
     in which four or six of the plutonium-rich assemblies--some 
     ``hot,'' some ``cooled''--were packed together and sealed 
     before being returned to the cooling pond.
       Weighing more than a ton, the filled canisters are far too 
     heavy to be handled by anything but a large robot, and all of 
     them now emit lethal doses of radiation.
       Last month, after nearly three years and $43 million in 
     U.S. support, the 478th and last canister was welded shut and 
     lowered into the pond.
       At the plant, Mr. Crane said, there are now manned gates, 
     closed-circuit TV cameras, X-ray machines and turnstiles with 
     magnetic cards, along with sensors that monitor the nuclear 
     materials around the clock.
       The packing is designed to last 50 years, but the plutonium 
     isn't destined to stay at the closed Aktau plant that long.
       Eventually, under a decree signed six months ago by Mr. 
     Nazarbayev, the canisters will be taken 2,750 miles by train 
     to the former nuclear-testing grounds at Semipalatinsk, on 
     the other side of this country four times the size of Texas.
       There, silos will be dug into the steppe and the fat 
     cylinders will be buried, using a technique perfected in the 
     United States.
       ``It will be the longest rail shipment of plutonium ever 
     attempted,'' said Miss Dedik. ``They will have to design 
     special transportation casks.''
       And since the rail line wanders through what is now Russia 
     and Kyrgyzstan, special loops will have to be built so that 
     the plutonium stays in Kazakhstan during its whole voyage.

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