Dale Bumpers

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Senator, you could be right about that, I am not sure.

Mr. BUMPERS. Well, $5.3 billion is $5.3 billion.

Mr. BUMPERS. You are talking about something different from the gas turbine modular helium reactor?

Mr. BUMPERS. Let me just say that it is a different design reactor, but the figures I am using are sort of a horseback guess by the Department of Energy of what it would cost for the new design, not the old design. Well, to get on with the story, we can always find some rationale to keep a project going--new design, old design, anything to keep the money flowing. But you ought to bear in mind, there has not been one single nuclear plant built in the last 20 years, and right now there is not one single utility in America that has any plans to build one. So you are talking about 20 years we have not built one, and certainly if somebody started trying to license one now, it would take another 20 years, and nobody is going to license one under current technology ever again. I started off confessing that I am not a physicist. I did not even have high school chemistry. These subjects are difficult to me. They are not difficult for the National Academy of Sciences. Do you know what the National Academy said? The best argument that the Senator from Alaska can make, or anybody else can make, for going forward with this project is that this advanced reactor will burn plutonium. That is a highly desirable goal. Everybody in the U.S. Senate wishes we could wave a wand and some new technology would appear to burn plutonium, get rid of it. One of the arguments that has consistently been made for this reactor is that is what it will do. I am not going to argue whether ultimately, after we spend $5 billion, we might have something that would burn plutonium. I want to make a couple of points. One I have already made, that burning plutonium in a new reactor is even more dangerous than our present situation, because it will be years and years and years before this reactor is ready. Meanwhile, we will have all this plutonium stored, and then even after we finish it, it will take years and years and years to burn it up, during which time it is always subject to a diversion--to Qadhafi, North Korea, or whoever. A more compelling argument is the one the National Academy of Sciences made when they said, in 1992, ``The committee believes that no funds should be allocated for development of high-temperature gas- cooled reactor technology within the commercial nuclear power development budget of DOE.'' In addition to that, they have said there are two much more preferable ways to get rid of plutonium. One is to fabricate it with other fuel and burn it up; the other, which is essentially my favorite, is vitrification, a process which we have also spent a lot of money on and which so far as we know will pay rich dividends. Now, Mr. President, further quoting the National Academy of Sciences, in their 1994 report said, ``These advance reactor types themselves, however, are not economically competitive with other sources of power.'' Listen to that: ``These advance reactor types themselves are not economically competitive with other sources of power,'' and the availability of plutonium as fuel does not make them economical. The storage of large stocks of weapons--plutonium--until such reactors become competitive, is not attractive for security reasons. Now, Mr. President, none of the research for this goes on in my State. I do not know where it goes on. I do not have a dog in the fight. All I know is I have been waking up screaming for the last 6 months--not about a budget cut, not about trying to balance the budget, but about our priorities. I spoke at the Governors School in my State last Saturday. There are 400 of the presumably brightest students in my State. They go to a 6- month school at a little liberal arts college called Hendrix College, where my sons went to school. When I walked out, a woman who accosted me said, ``My son who is here will not be able to get a college education.'' We did not elaborate on that. But we are cutting student loans, we are cutting income investments, earned income tax credits. We are going to wind up cutting welfare for the poorest of the poor. I have no objection to reforming welfare. We will wind up cutting food stamps. We are going to cut everything that affects about 30 to 40 percent of the people in this country, and we are going to increase defense spending $7 billion above what the Defense Department says they want-- $7 billion above the President's request--but still, twice as much as virtually the rest of the world combined. Here is an opportunity to save a paltry $5 million, and in the future, lord knows how many millions. The National Taxpayers Union, the Citizens Against Government Waste, all those people are strongly in favor of this amendment, and torpedoing this technology, not once and for all, but at least for the foreseeable future, until the National Academy of Sciences says it has a lot more promise than it has now. I yield the floor. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. BUMPERS. Is 10 minutes sufficient for the Senator?

Mr. BUMPERS. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. BUMPERS. Will the Senator from Michigan yield for 30 seconds?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I misspoke myself a while ago and in fairness to the Senator from Texas I want to correct it. The amendment is what the Congressman from the district where the super collider is located tried to do in the House, but because of the House rule, was not permitted to offer the amendment.

Mr. BUMPERS. I yield 5 minutes to the junior Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I just want to say to my colleagues there are three powerful arguments for finally terminating this program which has been around for 30 years. One is the National Academy of Sciences that said there are two eminently better methods of using up plutonium: Fabricated fuel, and vitrification. Second, this is a much more dangerous project because you have to store plutonium for much longer periods of time, and that subjects it to diversion for weapons use. And third, we are headed for a $5.3 billion project, 50 percent of which Uncle Sugar will have to put up. Now, Mr. President, what do you have to do around here? The Department of Energy does not want it. The National Academy of Sciences says it is a terrible idea. And the costs are staggering. What do you have to do to convince people to terminate something around here? The Senator from Alaska read from the committee report. I assume he wrote it. That is committee report language that he wrote. It has no technical value. And the Senator from Alaska says he wants to put $5 million into this study. After 30 years, $1,800,000,000, we are going to study it. And, Mr. President, here is what the Department of Energy said: The Department does not support continued funding of the Gas Turbine Modular Helium Reactor. There are significant questions about the viability of this reactor type, including whether the fuel will retain fission products to the extent necessary for safety. There is little utility interest in this technology, and we believe that development of this reactor concept would require Federal expenditures in excess of $1 billion [just] over the next decade.

Mr. BUMPERS. I yield the floor. Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS. Is the Senator from Louisiana prepared to yield back time?

Mr. BUMPERS. I yield back the balance of my time, and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, briefly, when we terminated the superconducting super collider, we entered into an agreement with the State of Texas, which was obligated at that time to spend close to $1 billion. They had already spent quite a bit of it. I guess you would say there were two parts of the termination agreement. One dealt with the employees severance package; the other was with the State of Texas. There was $65 million that the Federal Government was going to put up to assist Texas in building a cancer institute on the site where the super collider was being built. Texas has now decided that they will not build the cancer institute there and wants us to give them the $65 million. My amendment would rescind the $65 million.

Mr. BUMPERS. I am happy to yield.

Mr. BUMPERS. I will defer to the distinguished floor manager on that.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, just one other point. This would put this bill on all fours with the House bill which has already done what my amendment would do.

Mr. BUMPERS. Repeat your question.

Mr. BUMPERS. That is the only one we have.

Mr. BUMPERS. Half Government and half private. That is the way the project has been operated so far.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, this is a complicated subject dealing with $12.5 million, not a lot of money around here. But considering the budget constraints we are operating under, we need to be very careful what we spend. It is, to use the technical term, $12.5 million to continue the ``gas turbine-modular helium reactor.'' This is a project that has been around for a very long time. A lot of money has already been spent on the program. Make no mistake about it, we have put $900 million into it, and industry has put almost as much. But it has been sagging simply because it is not viable. It is not viable technically within the time frame within which we ought to complete it and the National Academy of Sciences says you cannot leave plutonium lying around stored for the periods of time that you are likely to have to store it before this reactor is completed and has the ability to burn it. In addition to that, the National Academy of Sciences says leaving plutonium stored is a dangerous proposition, and the longer you leave it stored, the more dangerous it becomes because of the threat of diversion of the plutonium to weapons. The Academy does not like the program. I do not like it. A lot of people do not like it, and they do not want to spend any more money on it. The first reactor that was used for demonstration of this technology was in Pennsylvania back in 1967 to 1974. Then a larger commercial plant was built in Colorado. And after operating for 16 years, it was finally shut down because it could only operate 14 percent of the time. Now, Mr. President, just like the super collider and a host of other technologies we have undertaken, including the liquid metal breeder reactor, there always comes a time to shut these things down. In 1993-- and I hope all Senators will listen to this--the U.S. Senate, this body, voted 58-41 to terminate this program. But we got over to conference, which is so often the case, and we receded to the House and the project continued. This year, the Appropriations Committee in the House provided $20 million to continue this thing, and Congressman Klug offered an amendment to kill it, and the vote to kill this project in the House this year was 306-121. Now, what we have had here is a little shell game. We did not put any money in, and the House did. They did not put in any money, and we did. Now we are back to we did not have any money in it until it was offered in the Appropriations Committee a few days ago, after the House just got through killing this thing by 306 votes to 121. This is pork at its worst. There was $12.5 million in the bill here on the floor right now. But do you know why? The Senator from Alaska--which was certainly his right--put it back in in committee. He won it there by 15-8. But Senator Domenici, in the chairman's mark, had torpedoed this thing. He left $7.5 million in the budget to terminate. That is the termination cost. Incidentally, my amendment only cuts $5 million. The Senator from Alaska got $12.5 million put back in. I am only cutting 5 of that because I agree with Senator Domenici. We ought to use that $7.5 million to torpedo this project once and for all. The senior Senator from Texas, with whom I agree about 1 percent of the time, made what I thought was a good statement the other day in committee. He said, ``When the Department of Energy, or anybody else, wants to get rid of something, why do we not, at least occasionally, if the bureaucrats want to get rid of it, honor their requests?'' It is very seldom they want to. When I think of all the unmet needs of this country, and when I think of all the pressures on the domestic discretionary spending side of this budget, and here the House has killed this thing almost 3-to-1, and you are talking about a project that would cost $5.3 billion to complete--we are not talking about a bean bag here, Mr. President. The Federal share would be $2.6 billion.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BUMPERS. Yes.