[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 31, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8475-S8476]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DOMENICI (for himself and Mr. Lugar):
  S. 1277. A bill to authorize the Secretary of Energy to guarantee 
loans to facilitate nuclear nonproliferation programs and activities of 
the Government of the Russian Federation, and for other purposes; to 
the Committee on Foreign Relations.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Fissile Material 
Loan Guarantee Act of 2001. This Act is intended to increase the suite 
of programs that reduce proliferation threats from the Russian nuclear 
weapons complex. I'm pleased that Senator Lugar joins me as a co-
sponsor of this Act.
  This Act presents an unusual option, which I've discussed with the 
leadership of some of the world's largest private banks and lending 
institutions. I also am aware that discussions between Western lending 
institutions and the Russian Federation are in progress and that 
discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency or IAEA have 
helped to clarify their responsibilities.
  This Act would enable the imposition of international protective 
safeguards on new, large stocks of Russian weapons-ready materials in a 
way that enables the Russian Federation to gain near-term financial 
resources from the materials. These materials would be used as 
collateral to secure a loan, for which the U.S. Government would 
provide a loan guarantee. The Act requires that loan proceeds be used 
in either debt retirement for the Russian Federation or in support of 
Russian non-proliferation or energy programs. It also requires that the 
weapons-grade materials used to collateralize these loans must remain 
under international IAEA safeguards forevermore and thus should serve 
to remove them from concern as future weapons materials.
  This Act does not replace programs that currently are in place to 
ensure that weapons-grade materials can never be used in weapons in the 
future. Specifically, it does not displace materials already committed 
under earlier

[[Page S8476]]

agreements. The Highly Enriched Uranium or HEU Agreement is moving 
toward elimination of 500 tons of Russian weapons-grade uranium. The 
Plutonium Disposition Agreement is similarly working on elimination of 
34 tons of Russian weapons-grade plutonium, primarily by its use in MOX 
fuel.
  The HEU agreement removes material usable in 20,000 nuclear weapons, 
while the plutonium disposition agreement similarly removes material 
for more than 4,000 nuclear weapons. Both of these agreements enable 
the transition of Russian materials into commercial reactor fuel, 
which, after use in a reactor, destroys its ``weapons-grade'' 
attributes. There should be no question that both these agreements 
remain of vital importance to both nations.
  But estimates are that the Russian Federation has vast stocks of 
weapons-grade materials in addition to the amounts they've already 
declared as surplus to their weapons needs in these earlier agreements.
  If we can provide additional incentives to Russia to encourage 
transition of more of these materials into configurations where it is 
not available for diversion or re-use in weapons, we've made another 
significant step toward global stability. And furthermore, this 
proposed mechanism provides a relatively low cost approach to reduction 
of threats from these materials.
  Senator Lugar and I introduced a similar bill near the end of the 
106th Congress, to provide time for discussion of its features. Those 
discussions have progressed, and this bill has some slight refinements 
that grew out of those discussions. Since then, we have received 
additional assurances that this bill provides a useful route to reduce 
proliferation threats, and thus we are reintroducing this bill in the 
107th Congress.
  Within the last few months, former Senator Howard Baker and former 
White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler completed an important report 
outlining the importance of the non-proliferation programs accomplished 
jointly with Russia. They noted, as their top recommendation, that:

       The most urgent unmet national security threat to the 
     United States today is the danger that weapons of mass 
     destruction or weapons-usable material in Russia could be 
     stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation states and 
     used against American troops or citizens at home. This threat 
     is a clear and present danger to the international community 
     as well as to American lives and liberties.

  This new Act provides another tool toward reducing these threats to 
national, as well as global, security.
                                 ______