[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 10] [Senate] [Pages 13483-13487] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]NOMINATION OF MADELYN R. CREEDON, OF INDIANA, TO BE DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR FOR DEFENSE PROGRAMS, NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION--Continued Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, what is the pending business? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending business is the nomination of Madelyn Creedon to be Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, National Nuclear Security Administration. Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I am pleased to come to the floor today and support the nomination of a very talented and a highly qualified member of the Armed Services Committee staff to be the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs of the newly created National Nuclear Security Administration. Madelyn Creedon has served her country for her entire professional life in a variety of important national security positions. She has served as Associate Deputy Secretary of Energy, working closely and directly with Deputy Secretary Charles Curtis. She was the general counsel for the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, and she has served as minority counsel to the Committee on Armed Services and counsel under my predecessor, Senator Sam Nunn. She spent 10 years as a trial attorney in the Department of Energy. Madelyn Creedon's nomination for this important position was unanimously reported to the full Senate by the Armed Services Committee on April 13. After working with her for more than 8 years on the Armed Services Committee, I know firsthand of her extraordinary understanding of the national security programs of the Department of Energy and of her passionate commitment to the success of these programs and to the national security of the United States. There are few people who have Madelyn Creedon's depth of experience and her knowledge in the nuclear weapons programs of the Department of Energy. Last month the Senate confirmed the nomination of Gen. John Gordon to be the Under Secretary of the Department of Energy and the head of the new National Nuclear Security Administration. All of us are aware of the significant challenges General Gordon is facing in this position. The Administrator of the new National Nuclear Security Administration is responsible for maintaining the safety, security and reliability of our Nation's nuclear warheads; for managing the Department of Energy laboratories; for cleaning up some of the worst environmental problems in the country; and for addressing security problems that continue to undermine pubic confidence in the Department of Energy. As one of the senior deputies in the National Nuclear Security Administration, Madelyn Creedon's knowledge and experience in all of these areas will be of great assistance in helping General Gordon address the challenges he is facing. I had a discussion with General Gordon last week. He told me that he wants Madelyn Creedon to be his deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, and he is anxious for Madelyn Creedon to get to work as his Deputy Administrator. Madelyn Creedon is well known and respected by Senators on both sides of [[Page 13484]] the aisle. Prior to her confirmation hearing in the Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner and I received a letter from Senator Lugar. I would like to quote just a few sentences from Senator Lugar's letter: As you know, Mr. Chairman, I am a strong supporter of U.S. nonproliferation efforts in the former Soviet Union. These programs have continually garnered bipartisan support because of the outstanding efforts of dedicated Members of Congress and staff on both sides of the aisle. Madelyn's efforts in this area have made tremendous contributions to the successful implementation of these important programs. Her oversight and legislative analyses of these programs have improved our country's national security. I am confident that she will provide the same level of expertise and dedication if confirmed as Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs at the Department of Energy. It is with great enthusiasm that I offer my strong support for Madelyn's nomination, and I am hopeful that members of the Armed Services Committee and the full Senate will concur. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of Senator Lugar's letter be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. (See exhibit 1.) Mr. LEVIN. If confirmed today, I understand that Madelyn Creedon will be the first woman to be placed in charge of the safety and reliability of America's nuclear deterrent. I cannot imagine any individual who would be better qualified to handle this awesome responsibility. We will miss Madelyn Creedon on the Armed Services Committee, but I think we all know that the committee's and the Senate's loss will be the country's gain. In closing, I first thank Madelyn Creedon for her dedicated service on the staff of the Armed Services Committee. I congratulate her on her nomination by the President to this important position in the Department of Energy. Finally, I thank Madelyn Creedon for her continued willingness to serve the country. And I thank her family--her husband Jim, her daughter Meredith, and her son John--for their sacrifices in supporting her in this demanding position. Exhibit No. 1 United States Senate, Washington, DC, April 11, 2000. Hon. John Warner, Chairman, Hon. Carl Levin, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC Dear Mr. Chairman and Senator Levin: I regret that I am unable to appear before your committee today to introduce a fellow Hoosier and offer my support for the nomination of Madelyn Creedon to the position of Deputy Administrator of Defense Programs at the Department of Energy. My responsibilities as Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee have required my presence at an important oversight hearing. It is always a source of great pride to see Hoosiers making valuable contributions to our country's security. Madelyn has an outstanding record of service to the U.S. government. She has served with distinction as Associate Deputy Secretary for National Security Programs at the Department of Energy, as General Counsel for the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, and here in the Senate as Minority Council of the Senate Armed Services Committee. It has been in the fulfillment of this last assignment that I have had the opportunity to observe and work with Madelyn. As you know, Mr. Chairman, I am a strong supporter of U.S. nonproliferation efforts in the former Soviet Union. These programs have continually garnered bipartisan support because of the outstanding efforts of dedicated Members of Congress and staff on both sides of the aisle. Madelyn's efforts in this area have made tremendous contributions to the successful implementation of these important programs. Her oversight and legislative analyses of these programs have improved our country's national security. I am confident that she will provide the same level of expertise and dedication if confirmed as Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs at the Department of Energy. It is with great enthusiasm that I offer my strong support for Madelyn's nomination, and I am hopeful that members of the Armed Services Committee and the full Senate will concur. Sincerely, Richard G. Lugar, United States Senator. Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I yield the floor and 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. DOMENICI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. DOMENICI. It is good to see you, Madam President, and to be back today. I just arrived from New Mexico, which accounts for my failure to put a more conventional tie on, but if I took the time to do that I would have missed an opportunity to speak on this issue. I am going to take a few minutes to discuss the way I see the matter, the pending nomination of Madelyn Creedon for Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration for Defense Programs. Let me start by suggesting that everyone should know, and I believe the nominee understands, that she does not work for the Secretary of Energy. She works for the new National Nuclear Security Administrator for Defense Programs within the Department of Energy. We might hearken back to only a few months ago when we had a very lengthy, multiday debate with reference to what we should do to reorganize the Department of Energy in the aftermath of the Wen Ho Lee incident, and a very major report by the President's most significant security group headed by former Senator Warren Rudman of New Hampshire. They recommended, and we adopted by law, a total reorganization within the Department of Energy of the matters that pertain to nuclear weaponry and nonproliferation on the basis that the Department of Energy had been built up just topsy-turvy and we had, within a very dysfunctional multilayered department, a most, most significant American concern, to wit: the nuclear weaponry of America. Believe it or not, a Department called Energy is in charge of the nuclear laboratories that produce all the science with reference to nuclear weapons and the three or four sites within America that used to produce weapons when we produced them. They are now part of a very dramatically changed effort called science-based stockpile stewardship, which means we are going to make every effort to make sure our nuclear weapons are safe and secure without ever doing another nuclear test. We are trying diligently to do that. Now we have a new department within the Department. Let me repeat that, because we are having so much difficulty getting out the message that we have already created a new entity, just let it start working. It is called the National Nuclear Security Administration. It is a hard name. In fact, I remembered it by carrying around to hearings a coffee cup that had ``NNSA'' on it. Then I was able to remember the name. But across the country they were all asking about 6 weeks ago: What are we going to do in the aftermath of Wen Ho Lee, finding some other secrets that had been misplaced in very peculiar circumstances? The first thing we ought to say is that we have already done something about it. We have created a semiautonomous agency that, in the not too distant future, will be running all of that. We have already selected the person in charge, thank God, a very distinguished general--that means he is a four-star--who was with the CIA, worked at Sandia National Laboratories and was an adviser to two Presidents on security. He has agreed to take this job. In other words, he will be running, within the Department of Energy, under his own power, all the nuclear weapons activities. This nominee will work for him. It was very important that we find out, since he did not select her, whether he wanted her for this job. I would think that would be the most logical question we would have; if the new man, General Gordon, who is going to run this, was not part of her selection and she was going to be his deputy, we surely ought to ask: Do you want her? So I am first reporting to the Senate that I had a responsibility of finding that out, because she also wanted to know. I can report to the Senate that he said: As matters are going now, I would not want to stand in the way--in fact, [[Page 13485]] I will support her confirmation by the Senate. So let's not expand much on that. Let's just say that the man for whom she will work, because he is going to be in charge of all this--she is not going to be working for the Secretary of Energy--has said: OK, even though I did not pick her, let's try her. I also want to tell the Senate that she had a lot to do, staffwise, with opposing this new law. She was the one helping Senators who opposed the creation of the National Nuclear Security Administration. So I have talked with her at length and I have said: Will you enforce this law? And she said: I will. Do you understand, you are working for the general who runs the new National Nuclear Security Administration? She said: I do. I work for him. I will try to help him be a success. Do you understand that the Secretary of Energy has created a number of positions that violate this law, to wit: He has put dual-hatted some people to work for him and the new man, when Congress did not intend that? They intended that all the people who worked for the general worked only for him, not the Secretary; that there not be 10, 12, 14 people who worked for both of them. She said: I understand that. He said: Did you hear the Secretary of Energy say he would fight that no longer? She said: I did. Did you hear him say he would support amendments to totally clarify this so there are no dual-hatted people who worked for both the Secretary of Energy and the general in charge of trying to create some decent management within our nuclear weapons complex, including the laboratories and the manufacturing centers and the nonproliferation activities that go with the laboratories? She said she understands that. Everybody seems to be on board. The problem is the general was just sworn in. There were a few months of delay for various reasons, not the least of which was that right after signing the bill into law, the President and Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, did not seek to implement the law very quickly. As a matter of fact, they went very slowly. We are now at a point where the general is in office, and he needs to build his team. She will be part of his team. If Senators are worried about whether she will work in that regard, they can vote for her or against her. I did not come to the floor to fight her nomination because I satisfied myself that she understood the law and pledged to enforce it and understood she worked for the general, not for the Secretary of Energy, for the foreseeable future. I do not know how long she will be in office. I do not know how long he will be in office, although we intend to make his term a 3-year term. With that, and given this background, I will vote for her. I am clearly of the opinion she has sufficient talent and expertise based on background and who she worked for and what she did. I do say it will be very challenging, based on her experience, for her to truly help this general make this work because she will be working for him, a very distinguished American retiring from the Air Force where he was a four- star general to undertake this job. It was a true act of patriotism on his part. He decided to take one of the most challenging jobs in Government, hardly understood as of today. But I assume that if it all works out, he will be very well known in a few years. If it really works out, he will be known for having set the nuclear weapons part of our Government on the right path, with the right management, not only with reference to security--for that will be his job also--but he will set it on a management path that something as refined as our nuclear weapons should have in place for the American people. That has not been the case. There have been at least three major studies just crying out for us to fix this, the last one done by the President's board on national security matters, headed by Warren Rudman with four other distinguished Americans, recommended this, and we helped draft the first law. We had five chairmen on the Republican side sponsoring the legislation which worked its way through the Senate and through the House and has now created this semiautonomous agency that I just described to the Senate and to those who are interested in where the security is going to come from for the nuclear weapons complex and our laboratories. We have created a whole new management effort. It is not going to be setting new boxes within the Department of Energy, which I have predicted will never work, but rather a total semi-independent agency with its own national administrator who will have total power and control. For those who are fearful of this, we have indicated on the environmental side that they must comply with NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act. But as to other rules and regulations, it is clear they can make their own, consistent with good judgment, preserving and protecting the safety of our nuclear weapons and preservation of these great National Laboratories. We banter around the security problems that have occurred, but everybody knows, since the Manhattan Project, we have always had the best--not the second best--we have had the very best laboratories in the world in charge of our nuclear designs, the nuclear weapons breakthroughs, and Los Alamos has always been the leader. They are having problems. Instead of saying, here are new rules we are going to pass in Congress, let's just make sure we are going to give the new administrator of that semiautonomous agency, General Gordon, everything he needs to take it out from under the dysfunctional Department of Energy and run it in a semiautonomous manner as described by law. Madelyn Creedon will be a big part of that. I came to the floor to speak so she will know that many of us have a genuine interest in this working, and we will have our minds and ears and eyes wide open and paying attention, and the Secretary of Energy knows we will, too. We want this general to have as much as he needs to do this job right. She will be his first assistant. Everybody should understand it is a big job. I do not need anymore time. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. L. Chafee). The Senator from Michigan. Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first, I thank my good friend from New Mexico for support of the Creedon nomination. It is important his support be there and his voting for her is a very significant step on his part. I know how deeply involved he is in the issue and how hard he fought for the creation of the semiautonomous agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration. She has satisfactorily assured him and all of us she will fully carry out this law. As a matter of fact, when she was helping the staff when this bill was in the Senate, she helped us work out the bipartisan bill that passed the Senate by a vote of 97-1. The good Senator from New Mexico was very much in the forefront of that effort to create the bipartisan effort that we successfully created in the Senate. Again, there was only one vote against the bill as it passed the Senate, and she helped us perfect that bill. I want to give her some credit. Perhaps even more importantly, the responsibility of whatever bumps that have been along this road are ours, not hers, because she staffs us. Just the way we want her to be the right arm of General Gordon, so she has been staffing us as well and carried out that role very well. We are, as Senators, responsible for our staff's work. If there is disagreement on this with some of the difficulties in creation of this particular semiautonomous agency or in the way it has been implemented, those disagreements lie with the Secretary of Energy or, to the extent they are legislative, lie with perhaps some Senators but not surely with our staffs who are carrying out our wishes, as we want and expect her to carry out General Gordon's wishes. Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, can I make sure the Senator from Michigan and I have one thing clear because he has been so honest with me once we got past this problem? We are both going [[Page 13486]] to see to it, to the best of our ability, that the semiautonomous agency, as created by law, is carried out. He told us that the other day when he was meeting with Republicans. I am very pleased because I think we all have to watch it. Clearly, General Gordon is going to need a lot of help. I think the Senator from Michigan would concur it is not easy to set up a semiautonomous agency within the Department of Energy. He told us: Let's go. And so did Senator Lieberman: Let's get it done. Is that a fair assessment? Mr. LEVIN. It is a fair assessment, and I think General Gordon is ready to have Madelyn there assisting him and will be a big boost. That is what he told me on the phone. The Senator from New Mexico recounted a conversation with General Gordon. I had a similar conversation with him. I wanted to be sure he truly wanted Madelyn Creedon because he was not the administrator at the time that nomination was forthcoming. I wanted to be sure he was, in fact, desirous of having her as his deputy, and he is so desirous and very much supports the nomination. We now can proceed to that vote, and, hopefully, she will receive an overwhelming vote of support. Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of Ms. Madelyn Creedon, who has been nominated by the President to become the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs of the new National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) at the Department of Energy. Ms. Creedon has a distinguished career with broad and deep experience regarding Department of Energy defense programs over which she will have oversight and management responsibilities in her position as ``second in command'' at the NNSA. My colleagues should be aware that before joining the staff of the Armed Services Committee in 1990, Ms. Creedon worked for ten years with the Office of the General Counsel at the Department of Energy (DOE). She returned to DOE after serving as counsel to the Armed Services Committee during 1990 through 1994 during which time she had oversight and review responsibilities of DOE national security and environmental programs. At DOE, Ms. Creedon served as Associate Deputy Secretary of Energy for National Security Programs from 1995 to 1997 when she resumed her position on the Armed Services Committee, once again with oversight responsibilities for DOE defense and environmental programs. In short, Mr. President, Ms. Creedon's professional credentials for this position are impeccable. Let me add, Mr. President, that I have worked closely with her during the past several years in my capacity as ranking member of the Strategic and Emerging Threats Subcommittees of the Armed Services Committee. I've found Ms. Creedon to be fully knowledgeable about the issues we have discussed, and to be a person of sound judgment regarding possible solutions in the interest of improving our national security. Her professional capabilities and commitment to public service and national security are plain to see for all of us on both sides of the aisle who have worked with her. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote in favor of Ms. Creedon's nomination to assume this important new position as Deputy Administrator to NNSA. Her experience and know-how will be key to ensuring a smooth transition to a successful NNSA. Mr. KYL. Mr. President, might I inquire either of the Chair or Senator Levin, is there time remaining or is the vote scheduled to occur right at 5:30? The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is time remaining; 4 minutes on the Republican side. Mr. KYL. In that event, Mr. President, I would like to conclude with some remarks in opposition to the nominee. With all due respect to Senator Levin--he knows I have the utmost respect for him--I believe Madelyn Creedon is not qualified for this very important position, one of the most important positions in our Government. She has never held the kind of positions, as her predecessors have, that would qualify her to head this particular agency. The Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs has the direct authority over the Directors of the three National Laboratories, the head of the Nevada Test Site, and the heads of the four nuclear weapons production facilities. This is the person who is in charge of our nuclear weapons production facilities, as well as the nuclear weapons laboratories and programs. While Ms. Creedon has worked as Senator Levin's counsel, before that and in between working for Senator Levin, she has also served as general counsel on the Base Closure Commission. She also served for a little over a year as an assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Energy. And she was counsel for special litigation at the Department of Energy from 1980 to 1990. She has never had the kind of educational background or administrative background that would qualify her for this position. The Deputy Administrator will be called upon to manage numerous large and very technically complex projects that are expanding the limits of America's scientific knowledge. Experience in managing large organizations and a technical background are highly desirable. The previous holder of this position, for example, Dr. Victor Reis, has a Ph.D. in physics and previously headed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency--or DARPA, as we know it--and also served as Director of Defense Research and Engineering at the Department of Defense. We have known for a long time that our nuclear weapons program has had great problems. With the appointment now of General Gordon to head the security side of this program, as Senator Domenici has just talked about, I think it is important that we have somebody really well qualified as the Deputy Administrator. I do not believe it is accurate to say that Ms. Creedon is his nominee. I think it is accurate to say he has no objection to her nomination. But as was pointed out, her nomination was made prior to the time he took his position. While I am certain that her nomination will be confirmed here today, I think for those of us who believe very strongly in national security, a strong nuclear weapons program, and a future that will ensure that our weapons are safe and reliable, it requires us to vote ``no'' on a nomination which is clearly inferior. There are 50 people who could readily be identified who have far superior qualifications to serve in this highly technical, very important post. For that reason, again, with all due deference to Senator Levin, and with deference to the nominee, I will be voting ``no'' and urging my colleagues to do the same. I thank the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan. Mr. LEVIN. Do I have 1 minute left? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 11 minutes. Mr. LEVIN. I will just use one of my minutes to fill in part of the record, and then we want to proceed to a vote. Madelyn Creedon has also served as Associate Deputy Secretary of Energy for National Security Programs. It is a very important part of her background where she worked directly with then-Deputy Secretary of Energy Charles Curtis. In addition to being minority counsel for the Armed Services Committee, she served as counsel under my predecessor, Senator Nunn, when he was chairman of the committee. So there are some additional important facets of her experience. As the Senator from Arizona mentioned, and as the Senator from New Mexico mentioned, General Gordon, who is the new person to run the agency, to run this new semiautonomous entity, specifically told me not just that he has no objection, but he supports her being both appointed and confirmed, and he had no objection to my putting it that way. So the person for whom we have voted and confirmed overwhelmingly to run this semiautonomous agency is anxious to get her on board and very much supports her nomination and confirmation. [[Page 13487]] With that, I yield back the remainder of my time. Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I yield back any time we might have. I understand we will proceed to vote when time is yielded back. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the confirmation. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination of Madelyn R. Creedon, of Indiana, to be Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, National Nuclear Security Administration? The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk called the roll. Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Fitzgerald), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Murkowski), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Santorum), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Specter), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich) are necessarily absent. Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Akaka), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Biden), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Durbin), the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Harkin), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy), the Senator from Arkansas (Mrs. Lincoln), the Senator from Maryland (Ms. Mikulski), and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Torricelli) are necessarily absent. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote? The result was announced--yeas 54, nays 30, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 172 Ex.] YEAS--54 Abraham Ashcroft Baucus Bayh Bingaman Bond Boxer Breaux Bryan Burns Byrd Chafee, L. Cleland Collins Conrad Daschle DeWine Dodd Domenici Dorgan Edwards Feingold Feinstein Gorton Graham Hagel Hollings Hutchison Inouye Jeffords Johnson Kennedy Kerrey Kohl Landrieu Lautenberg Levin Lieberman Lugar Moynihan Murray Reed Reid Robb Rockefeller Roth Sarbanes Schumer Snowe Stevens Thurmond Warner Wellstone Wyden NAYS--30 Allard Bennett Brownback Bunning Campbell Cochran Coverdell Craig Crapo Enzi Frist Gramm Grams Grassley Gregg Hatch Helms Hutchinson Kyl Lott Mack McConnell Nickles Roberts Sessions Shelby Smith (NH) Smith (OR) Thomas Thompson NOT VOTING--16 Akaka Biden Durbin Fitzgerald Harkin Inhofe Kerry Leahy Lincoln McCain Mikulski Murkowski Santorum Specter Torricelli Voinovich The nomination was confirmed. Mr. LOTT. I move to reconsider the vote. Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. ____________________