[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 43 (Wednesday, April 17, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2820-S2821]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       THE UNITED STATES/RUSSIAN PLUTONIUM DISPOSITION AGREEMENT

 Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today to bring the 
Senate's attention to a matter of tremendous international importance 
to our efforts to prevent the terrorists' use of weapons of mass 
destruction.
  I wish to talk about the United States/Russian plutonium disposition 
agreement, a commitment between our two countries to each permanently 
dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium from nuclear weapons. Thirty-
four tons is enough material to make over 4,000 nuclear weapons.
  I was pleased to help develop aspects of that agreement during 
several interactions with the Russian leadership of Minatom, both here 
and in Russia. I was in Moscow with our President in 1998 when the 
first agreement was initialed. I believe this agreement represents one 
the most significant accomplishments between the United States and 
Russia in the last 10 years in our joint efforts to keep the material 
and technology of weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of those 
that seek to do us harm.
  The agreement basically commits the United States and Russia to 
turning 34 tons of plutonium into fuel that can be burned in commercial 
nuclear power plants. In this way, electricity is produced and the used 
fuel is left in a condition that makes it unusable in the future for 
nuclear bombs. Facilities will be built in both the United States and 
Russia to perform this work.
  Our Government completed a 4-year process to decide what type of 
facilities was needed for this disposition mission, and where those 
facilities should be built. The United States considered four sites, 
Washington State, Idaho, Texas, and South Carolina, and after a 
vigorous competition in which the State of South Carolina lobbied very 
hard to get the mission, the decision was made to site the disposition 
facilities in South Carolina.
  Now, South Carolina is hesitating. The plutonium disposition 
agreement

[[Page S2821]]

is being imperiled by the unwillingness of the State of South Carolina 
to reach an agreement with the Department of Energy on taking shipment 
of the plutonium identified for disposition and building the required 
facilities.
  It is appropriate for the Governor of South Carolina to insist on 
every assurance that his State will be treated fairly, and will not 
simply become the permanent storage site for unwanted nuclear material 
if for some reason the plutonium agreement should fall apart.
  But the Governor has done that, he has succeeded, he has won. He 
should be congratulated.
  The Governor has gotten the Secretary of Energy to provide South 
Carolina all of the assurances they never got from the Clinton 
administration, including full funding for the MOX program, a strict 
construction schedule, and a number of mechanisms, including statutory 
language and other measures, to ensure that the agreement will be 
legally enforceable.
  However, the Governor is apparently insisting that this matter should 
be thrown to the courts and resolved through the mechanism of a court 
ordered consent decree. Putting the courts in charge of executive 
branch non-proliferation and foreign policy affairs will slow our 
ability to meet our goals of reducing Russian nuclear material 
stockpiles, and will allow others who are opposed to the program's 
goals have a voice in their implementation. Ultimately, I fear 
America's national security will be undermined.
  Further delay in reaching agreement with South Carolina will 
undermine the United States/Russian plutonium disposition agreement. We 
must move forward with the construction of the MOX plant that will be 
used to dispose of the plutonium at issue in order to honor our 
commitments to the Russian Federation. That will be very difficult, if 
not impossible, in the face of litigation from the Governor of the 
State where the plant will be located.
  The Russians will not go along to reduce their plutonium inventory 
unless we do. A failure in this program means more material may end up 
on the black market where terrorists could have access to it.
  For 50 years now the State of South Carolina, like my home State of 
New Mexico, has hosted some of the most important facilities within our 
nuclear weapons complex. For 50 years, tens of thousands of the sons 
and daughters of South Carolina proudly toiled in relative anonymity so 
that the rest of the country, and the world, could enjoy the peace 
provided by our nuclear shield during the long, dark days of the Cold 
War. I am proud of the citizens of South Carolina and their unique 
service for our county.
  Today, the children and grandchildren of the previous generations of 
South Carolina heroes have a tremendous opportunity to almost 
literally, as the prophet Isaiah said, ``beat their swords into 
plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.'' They stand on the 
cusp of a grand new opportunity to lead the world community in 
converting nuclear weapons to electric power while at the same time 
keeping the material out of the hands of would be terrorists.
  We must go forward with this important agreement. Thus, I will close 
today by urging both the Secretary of Energy and the Governor of South 
Carolina to work together to resolve their differences, move out 
together, and not threaten this effort by resorting to 
litigation.

                          ____________________