[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 38 (Monday, September 25, 2000)]
[Pages 2105-2106]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Message to the Senate Transmitting the Joint Convention on the Safety of 
Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management 
With Documentation

September 13, 2000

To the Senate of the United States:

    I transmit herewith, for Senate advice and consent to ratification, 
the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the 
Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, done at Vienna on September 5, 
1997. Also transmitted for the information of the Senate is the report 
of the Department of State concerning the Convention.
    This Convention was adopted by a Diplomatic Conference convened by 
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in September 1997 and was 
opened for signature in Vienna on September 5, 1997, during the IAEA 
General Conference, on which date Secretary of Energy Federico Pena 
signed the Convention for the United States.
    The Convention is an important part of the effort to raise the level 
of nuclear safety around the world. It is companion to and structured 
similarly to the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS), to which the Senate 
gave its advice and consent on March 25, 1999, and which entered into 
force for the United States on July 10, 1999. The Convention establishes 
a series of broad commitments with respect to the safe management of 
spent fuel and radioactive waste. The Convention does not delineate 
detailed mandatory standards the Parties must meet, but instead Parties 
are to take appropriate steps to bring their activities into compliance 
with the general obligations of the Convention.
    The Convention includes safety requirements for spent fuel 
management when the spent fuel results from the operation of civilian 
nuclear reactors and radioactive waste management for wastes resulting 
from civilian applications.
    The Convention does not apply to a Party's military radioactive 
waste or spent nuclear fuel unless the Party declares it as spent 
nuclear fuel or radioactive waste for the purposes of the Convention, or 
if and when such waste material is permanently transferred to and 
managed within exclusively civilian programs. The Convention contains 
provisions to ensure that national security is not compromised and that 
Parties have absolute discretion as to what information is reported on 
material from military sources.
    The United States has initiated many steps to improve nuclear safety 
worldwide in accordance with its long-standing policy to make safety an 
absolute priority in the use of nuclear energy, and has supported the 
effort to develop both the CNS and this Convention. The Convention 
should encourage countries to improve the management of spent fuel and 
radioactive waste domestically and thus result in an increase in nuclear 
safety worldwide.
    Consultations were held with representatives from States and the 
nuclear industry. There are no significant new burdens or unfunded 
mandates for the States or industry that should result from the 
Convention. Costs for implementation of the proposed Convention will be 
absorbed within the existing budgets of affected agencies.
    I urge the Senate to act expeditiously in giving its advice and 
consent to ratification.
                                            William J. Clinton
 The White House,
 September 13, 2000.

Note: This message was released by the Office of the Press Secretary on 
September 15. This item was not received in time for publication in the 
appropriate issue.

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