[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 8]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 11499-11500]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



  IN HONOR OF PAUL LEVENTHAL AND THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE NUCLEAR 
                           CONTROL INSTITUTE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 21, 2001

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in order to honor Paul 
Leventhal and the Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) which he founded 20 
years ago. On June 21, 1981, a full-page ad in The New York Times 
entitled ``Will Tomorrow's Terrorist Have an Atom Bomb?'' announced the 
launching of NCI (then known as ``The Nuclear Club Inc.''). Over the 
past two decades, Paul and NCI have been working to safeguard us from 
the dangers of irresponsible and malicious use of nuclear materials. 
And for years prior to forming NCI, Paul played an absolutely crucial 
role as a Senate staff member, helping to abolish the Atomic Energy 
Commission and split its roles between the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission and the Department of Energy, produce the Nuclear Non-
proliferation Act, and direct the investigations of the Three Mile 
Island accident.
  On April 9, 2001, Paul and NCI, in close collaboration with Marvin 
Miller of MIT, hosted an excellent 20th Anniversary Conference, 
``Nuclear Power and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons: Can we have one 
without the other?'' That is, does the proliferation of nuclear power 
encourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons? Did it make sense to 
supply the Indian government with nuclear fuel for their power plant at 
Tarapur? Does supplying the North Korean government with 2,000 
megawatts of power from light water reactors encourage or discourage 
their acquisition of nuclear weapons?
  But the issue of nuclear power is not only on the international 
scale. To solve our current ``energy crisis'', we find that the Bush 
administration has called for an increased reliance on nuclear power in 
our country. While NCI is not a priori averse to nuclear power, they 
are concerned that it be used properly. And the United States has an 
obligation to set a good example. If we want to discourage other 
nations from using plutonium, then the United States should not regard 
MOX fuel as a viable source of power.
  At the conference on April 9, a number of experts spoke to the 
gathering about nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The website 
www.nci.org/conference.htm contains the text of the addresses as well 
as brief interviews with a number of the speakers. I will highlight 
here only a couple of the notable participants in that forum.
  Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute presented energy 
conservation and efficiency measures that could save the United States 
three-quarters of its electric use--equivalent to four times current 
nuclear output and cheaper to install that current nuclear operating 
costs. These retrofits of the best existing technologies, he said, 
would offset any need for continuation or expansion of nuclear power.
  Robert Williams of Princeton University, an expert on renewable and 
other non-carbon, alternative energy systems, underscored the fact that 
two-thirds of carbon-dioxide emissions, a major contributor to global 
warming, come from non-electric sources, mainly transport. He pointed 
out that the replacement of all coal-fired electricity with nuclear 
capacity over the next century would only make a dent in global warming 
by reducing carbon emissions by just 20 per cent. Such an expansion of 
nuclear power, however, would generate plutonium flows of millions of 
kilograms a year for breeder reactors, which could prove an 
unmanageable proliferation danger.
  The conference was an excellent opportunity to review the connections 
between nuclear power and weapons and to question the necessity for 
turning to nuclear power when the risks might outweigh the benefits. 
The conference was a testament to NCI's persistent dedication to the 
cause of keeping us safe from the potential dangers of nuclear 
materials.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the record a summary 
of the history and accomplishments of NCI over the last 20 years.

                       Nuclear Control Institute


                 1981-2001; History and Accomplishments

       Nuclear Control Institute was established in 1981 by its 
     president, Paul Leventhal, as an independent oversight 
     organization. It continues work he began on U.S. Senate staff 
     to draw attention to the spread of nuclear weapons and to 
     strengthen controls over U.S. nuclear exports and U.S.-origin 
     fissile materials. His work contributed to the demise of the 
     Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and to enactment of the 
     Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978.
       NCI was the first non-profit organized to work exclusively 
     on the problem of nuclear proliferation. NCI's focus was then 
     and remains today prevention, not simply management, of the 
     spread of nuclear weapons. NCI works to eliminate civilian 
     uses of atom-bomb materials, plutonium and highly enriched 
     uranium (HEU), by calling attention to the dangers these 
     fuels pose in advanced industrial countries as well as in the 
     developing world. NCI seeks to break the linkages between 
     civilian and military nuclear applications and to build 
     linkages between nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-
     proliferation.
       In a policy environment that often puts diplomatic and 
     trade interests ahead of long-term security concerns, NCI 
     works to promote bilateral and multi-lateral initiatives to 
     make the world safe from plutonium. NCI, although small in 
     size, has effectively pursued initiatives against plutonium 
     and HEU commerce in a number of countries, including Japan, 
     Germany, Great Britain, Argentina, Brazil, and in en-route 
     states like Panama.

[[Page 11500]]

       In 1982, NCI proposed and won enactment of a ban on the use 
     of U.S. civilian spent fuel from civilian nuclear power 
     plants as a source of plutonium for weapons (the Hart-
     Simpson-Mitchell Amendment).
       In 1983, NCI commissioned a study, ``World Inventories of 
     Civilian Plutonium and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons'' by 
     David Albright, the first definitive analysis of the amounts 
     of civilian plutonium accumulating in the world.
       In 1985, NCI convened an international conference on the 
     threat of nuclear terrorism, and then established the 
     International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism. 
     The Task Force's findings in 1986 contributed to enactment of 
     a law to combat nuclear terrorism (the Omnibus Diplomatic 
     Security and Anti-Terrorism Act of 1986). Two books that 
     emerged from that project remain the definitive, non-
     classified work on the subject.
       In 1987, NCI helped win enactment of the Murkowski 
     Amendment, which blocked air shipments of plutonium from 
     Europe to Japan after NCI disclosed the secret failure of a 
     test to prove a crash-worthy plutonium shipping cask.
       In 1988, NCI assembled a group of world-class scientists to 
     promote the ``Tritium Factor'' approach to nuclear 
     disarmament, using tritium's relatively fast decay to pace 
     U.S.-Soviet arms reductions and thereby facilitate the 
     shutdown of all military production reactors--the situation 
     that effectively prevails in the United States today.
       In 1989, NCI convened a Montevideo conference of Argentine, 
     Brazilian and U.S. nuclear officials and experts that 
     developed proposals which were incorporated into the treaty 
     signed the following year to end the Argentine-Brazilian 
     nuclear arms race.
       In 1990, NCI commissioned a study by a former U.S. nuclear-
     weapons designer (the late Carson Mark) that resulted in the 
     first formal acknowledgement by the head of the International 
     Atomic Energy Agency that nuclear weapons could be made from 
     civilian ``rector-grade'' plutonium.
       In 1991, NCI correctly predicted that Iraq would violate 
     IAEA safeguards and divert civilian nuclear research reactor 
     fuel for the purpose of making nuclear weapons.
       In 1992, NCI helped win enactment of export controls (the 
     Schumer Amendment) barring U.S. transfers of highly enriched, 
     bomb-grade uranium (HEU) to research reactors that could make 
     use of newly developed, low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel 
     unsuitable for weapons. As a result, U.S. exports of HEU have 
     been nearly eliminated, and most of the hold-out reactors in 
     Europe have agreed to convert to LEU fuel.
       In 1993, NCI, in collaboration with the California-based 
     Committee to Bridge the Gap, succeeded in a 10-year effort to 
     persuade the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to promulgate a 
     rule to protect nuclear power plants against truck bombs. The 
     truck-bomb rule took effect the following year, and NCI has 
     since been petitioning NRC to upgrade this rule as well as 
     upgrade protection against other forms of terrorist attack 
     and sabotage.
       In 1994, NCI forced a $100 million cleanout and audit of a 
     plutonium fuel fabrication plant in Japan after disclosing a 
     70-kilogram discrepancy, equivalent to a dozen nuclear 
     weapons. NCI also prepared a detailed economic analysis 
     showing that Japan could guarantee its energy security by 
     establishing a strategic reserve of non-weapons-usable 
     uranium at a fraction of the cost of their plutonium fuel and 
     breeder program.
       In 1996, NCI was invited to make exert technical and legal 
     presentations before the International Maritime Organization 
     in London on safety and security shortcomings in the sea 
     transport of radioactive materials. Since then, NCI has 
     worked closely with coastal states in opposition to plutonium 
     and radioactive waste shipments from Europe to Japan.
       Also in 1996, NCI uncovered a secret dispute within the 
     U.S. Executive Branch over the Department of Energy's plan to 
     turn most surplus military plutonium into mixed-oxide (MOX) 
     fuel for nuclear power plants and drew nationwide attention 
     to this dangerous program.
       Today, NCI continues to advocate disposal of military 
     plutonium directly as waste and to oppose its use as civilian 
     reactor fuel. NCI also pursues stronger security over 
     transport, storage and use of civilian plutonium and bomb-
     grade uranium, while pressing for elimination of these 
     dangerous civilian nuclear fuels.

     

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