[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 25 (Friday, March 8, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1693-S1694]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S1693]]
       NATIONAL LABORATORIES PARTNERSHIP IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2001

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of S. 517, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 517) to authorize funding for the Department of 
     Energy to enhance the mission areas through technology 
     transfer and partnerships for fiscal years 2002 through 2006, 
     and for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Daschle/Bingaman further modified amendment No. 2917, in 
     the nature of a substitute.
       McCain amendment No. 2979 (to amendment No. 2917), to 
     provide for enhanced safety, public awareness, and 
     environmental protection in pipeline transportation.
       Feinstein amendment No. 2989 (to amendment No. 2917), to 
     provide regulatory oversight over energy trading markets.
       Bingaman/Domenici amendment No. 2990 (to amendment No. 
     2917) to promote collaboration between the United States and 
     Mexico on research related to energy technologies.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized.


   Amendment No. 2979, As Amended, to Amendment No. 2917, As Further 
                                Modified

  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 2 minutes 
for debate be yielded back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Breaux), 
the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), the Senator from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Kennedy), the Senator from Maryland (Ms. Mikulski), and the 
Senator from Georgia (Mr. Miller) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi) is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 94, nays 0, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 45 Leg.]

                                YEAS--94

     Akaka
     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Cantwell
     Carnahan
     Carper
     Chafee
     Cleland
     Clinton
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Corzine
     Craig
     Crapo
     Daschle
     Dayton
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Ensign
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Nickles
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (NH)
     Smith (OR)
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Torricelli
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--6

     Breaux
     Enzi
     Inouye
     Kennedy
     Mikulski
     Miller
  The amendment was agreed to.
  Mr. CORZINE. Madam President, I rise today in support of the 
amendment offered by my distinguished colleagues, Senators McCain and 
Hollings, to improve pipeline safety. This amendment would add to this 
legislation the text of S. 235, the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 
2001, which previously was approved by the Senate.
  As Congress debates the direction of our Nation's energy policy, we 
need to consider the safety of the infrastructure that transmits much 
of that energy. S. 235 is important legislation that would help to 
secure the safety and integrity of our Nation's 2.2 million mile-long 
hazardous liquid and natural gas pipeline system. And I want to thank 
Senators McCain, Hollings, and Murray for the hard work that culminated 
in this bill.
  When S. 235 was considered on the Senate floor early last year, 
Senator Torricelli and I offered four amendments that we felt addressed 
important issues related to pipeline safety. We agreed with the 
sponsors of the bill that the most important of these amendments, 
related to the integrity of pipelines and their frequency of 
inspection, should be added to the bill. The bill then passed the 
Senate unanimously, 98-0. Unfortunately that bill remains stuck in the 
House, which so far has refused to act on the legislation.
  The issue of pipeline integrity remains an important issue that must 
be addressed. I have a special interest in this matter because my own 
State of New Jersey was the site of a major pipeline explosion. On 
March 24, 1994, a natural gas pipeline exploded in Edison, NJ, at 12 
midnight. Families living in the nearby Durham Woods apartment complex 
awoke to a deafening roar. They ran out of their homes to see a wall of 
flame hundreds of feet in the air. These flames were so high that they 
were seen in both New York City and Pennsylvania.
  Miraculously, only one person died that night. However scores of 
people suffered injuries due either to burns or smoke inhalation. Many 
more lost their homes and all their possessions. And the explosion 
itself left a crater that was 60-feet deep.
  This explosion was caused by a natural gas pipeline that was buried 
in the earth. There were no reports of digging in the area, nor were 
there reports of any other disturbances that could have set off this 
explosion. It was simply the corrosion that occurred in the pipeline as 
a result of natural conditions that allowed natural gas to leak, the 
gas to then ignite and an explosion to happen.
  As harrowing as this tragedy was--it was not the only one. There have 
been natural gas pipeline explosions in other States, including New 
Mexico, which have been severe enough to cause loss of life. In New 
Mexico, 12 members of a family were incinerated when the natural gas 
pipeline they were camped next to exploded in August of 2000.
  From 1986 to 2000, there have been 366 fatalities due to pipeline 
accidents around our Nation. Three hundred and forty of these were due 
to natural gas pipeline accidents.
  This concerns me because there is currently no requirement for the 
regular inspection of natural gas pipelines in this country. The Office 
of Pipeline Safety already requires hazardous liquid pipelines to be 
inspected on a regular basis. But it has not yet promulgated a rule 
regarding natural gas pipelines. And we have waited long enough.
  That is why I sponsored language requiring a 5-year inspection period 
for all pipelines, liquid and natural gas. It was this language which 
was added to the version of S. 235 that is included in this amendment. 
And it is this language, along with the rest of S. 235, that I hope we 
will include in the energy bill to move this matter forward and help 
ensure that this legislation gets to the President's desk and becomes 
law.


                           PRICE-ANDERSON ACT

  Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I would like to make a brief statement 
about the Price-Anderson Act and our vote yesterday. The Price-Anderson 
Act, which was first enacted in 1957, limits the nuclear industry's 
liability in the case of an accident. Under current law, that 
limitation applies to all existing nuclear powerplants and would have 
continued to apply to all existing nuclear powerplants had the Senate 
not acted. The amendment the Senate passed yesterday extended the 
Price-Anderson Act's liability limitation to new nuclear powerplants. 
As I have said before, I support Price-Anderson for our existing fleet 
of reactors, and I support extending the life of those plants. However, 
I do question whether or not we need to extend this liability to new 
plants. I know that we are making progress in developing new, more 
economic and safer plants, such as the pebble bed reactors. 
Nevertheless, the jury is out. We don't know if these plants will be 
economical. We don't know whether they will need or should receive 
liability caps. We don't know what that liability cap should be. And we 
still have not solved the fundamental question of what we will do with 
nuclear waste. I believe we should answer that question before we build 
new plants and not simply leave that problem to future generations.
  Mr. REID. The Senator from Idaho is here to offer an amendment on the 
bill.

[[Page S1694]]

We thought previously it would be something we could do in about 5 
minutes. I don't think we can do that, although we may be able to do it 
quickly on Monday or Tuesday.
  I ask the Senator to be his usual gracious self and not offer the 
amendment today until we have a chance to look at it.
  Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, the Senator from Nevada chairs the 
appropriating subcommittee on this issue. It is an authorization. I 
certainly want him to understand it. I will step back. I would like to 
move it as quickly as possible. Monday or Tuesday of next week would be 
fine.

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