Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I thank my colleague from Idaho for his contribution. Idaho and its citizens have been addressing the legacy of this Nation's nuclear defense missions and the products of its ongoing operations in the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program for many decades at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. I believe it is important to explain to my colleagues the relationship of this history, and its pending commitments, to the legislation before us. Section 101(g)

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. The Senator from Nevada said you and I portrayed the transportation as safe as transporting a quart of milk home from the store. I think the record ought to be corrected. The transportation system for nuclear waste is safer than transporting a quart of milk home. Have you ever dropped a quart of milk on the floor of the supermarket or on the floor of the kitchen? I have, and I have burst the container. You can drop these containers 50 feet onto a piece of concrete and they do not burst. That is the characteristics of the container. I think, when we also get in our car at the supermarket and drive home, we do not have a police escort in front of us and behind us, making sure that the road is perfectly clear so someone does not sideswipe us at the intersection or hit us as we are leaving. I know what the Senator from Nevada was trying to do. But the reality is, the transportation of high-level radioactive materials in this country is, by far, much safer than transporting a quart of milk home from the supermarket. There is a lot of milk spilled between the supermarket and the kitchen of the average residence in our country. But to our knowledge not one curie of radioactivity has ever been spilled going from a reactor to a storage site, once it was containerized and in its mode of transportation. I thank my colleague for yielding. That is an important correction. We ought not make light of our arguments here because the facts are very clear when it comes to transporting this critical material.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I stand on the floor today to speak against the Reid-Bryan amendment as it relates to Governors' authority on transportation of materials through their States. My colleague from Nevada, who is not only a U.S. Senator but a former Governor of that State, just said something that I found fascinating in the context of this legislation or this amendment. In a dialog with his colleague, the other Senator from Nevada, he suggested that with all of the safeguards and the protections put in, couldn't you go to a Governor and logically argue with him and, therefore, convince him to just sign off, Governor? My guess is that as a former Governor of the State of Nevada or a Governor today in Nevada, with all these safeguards, he wouldn't sign off--not because of the science, not because of the engineering, but because of the politics. Plain and simple politics is what is dictating the argument on the floor today--not science, not engineering, not the facts. So, sign off, Governor. Just sign off, and everything will be fine. And the Governor looks over his back shoulder, he looks at the polls, and he sees that the citizens of his State do not want nuclear waste stored in their State no matter how good the science, no matter how good the engineering, no matter how good the record, no matter how good the history of that record. What does he do? Is he the statesman that he should be? Not at all. He is the politician that he is. He says, ``My reelection is in trouble if I do thus and so.'' Why do I speak in this manner? Because Idaho went through that very experience. Idaho has a large amount of interim storage of high-level nuclear material. And a former Governor of our State got a Federal court order to stop the shipment of that waste coming into the State. But could he get the Federal court to ultimately say no waste movement to Idaho? No; what he could get, what any Governor can get, what our S. 104 provides, and what current law provides is that he could assure that the condition in which that waste would be stored both long-term or short-term would be safe, would be environmentally sound, and would not put at risk or put in danger the citizens of that State. Why could the Governor not absolutely say, ``It cannot cross my borders''? Because we are no longer a confederation of States. We almost fell apart as a nation when we were a confederation. We are now a union bound together by a Constitution that speaks very specifically to interstate commerce, and the ability of a Governor or a State to block the movement of materials or commerce across its border. But what we do say--and what we defend and what S. 104 clearly spells out--is that the Governor of the State and the State itself can condition the movement of materials across its border. That is exactly what the State of Idaho did. My Governor over the last several years has signed agreements with the Department of Energy under a Federal court order that conditions the waste that still comes to Idaho across many borders up the rails from Norfolk, VA, to Idaho-- 2,500-plus miles, 600 shipments over 30 years, and never an accident-- with never a human put at risk by the spill of radioactive activity. I am not suggesting nor am I attempting to impugn the integrity of the Senators from Nevada. They will do what they must do because they have the right to do it. But let me suggest they do not have the science, and they do not have the engineering. They only have the politics. When you look at the amendment that they proposed and at the legislation that the Senator from Alaska, I, and the committee crafted, when you talk about the intricacies of laws, when you look at the legislation that is now law, the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act, known as HAZMAT which involves the States, which assures that States and Federal transportation of hazardous materials is in concert, that humans are safe and humans are protected, but the reality is that to provide greater protection for the broader good and for the national interests sometimes State borders must be crossed. The HAZMAT system has adopted a uniform, regulated approach toward handling materials regardless of their type. Regulations of these materials allow States authority to conduct certain inspections, and we have even extended that. We have created greater authority in this legislation because several of our Senators--and rightfully so--are concerned about the movement of radioactive materials across their States. And I am concerned when States are not generators of it. My State is a partial generator but a much larger store in a temporary way of waste. This second-degree amendment is not just some conditioning amendment. This kills S. 104. This changes the whole character and the context of what the bill itself would do. The Senator from Alaska, the chairman of the committee, has so clearly said that this gives every Governor in every State absolute authority to cancel, stop, or otherwise terminate movement across State borders. We have really never given States that authority. And we should not here. But we have continually done it. And I have argued for it on many occasions under many different examples and legislation that is now law. States have very clear rights. They have 10th amendment rights. And those rights are very strong as it relates to the ability of States to govern themselves and control themselves, and not have the Federal Government impugn that authority, or dictate that authority, or change the character of that authority. But one thing that a State cannot do is lock and block its borders. That is, of course, the reason that 208 years ago many of what we now call our Founding Fathers joined in Philadelphia to try to figure out how to get our States back together because we were falling apart largely because States had that kind of absolute authority. The States of Maryland and Virginia were shooting at each other across the Potomac River, or at least some of their interests were. And the Confederation was falling apart. That was one of the early parts of a Constitution, to make sure that commerce could flow. I think all of the Senators on the floor would argue that this isn't the best form of commerce, and this isn't like what we would like to think of as commerce. But we clearly recognize that in the national interest, when it comes to the rights of States, that the principles of federalism on which our country was founded recognize States' authority to govern matters within their borders but must give way to Federal authority when an issue is one of national scope reaching beyond the particular boundaries of a given State. This is an interesting combination. This is not only an issue of national scope. This is a Federal material going to a Federal property--not a private property, not a State-owned property, but Federal land in the State of Nevada. The Senators from Nevada and I are oftentimes very perplexed because we are representatives of States that have very large Federal domains. Sometimes we wish a great amount of that land could either be public- State land, and in some instances private land, but that is not the way it is, and that is not the way our States came into the Union. As a result, we are talking about building an interim storage facility, after viability determination, facilitating a deep geologic repository, long term. And it is not true that this is just going to happen and the Nevada test site was just chosen. Certainly this argument deserves merit. I know it can have the emotion, and I certainly know it has its politics because I live with nuclear radioactive politics in my State every day because we are a repository temporarily of large volumes of high-level waste from our nuclear Navy. I also know that it has been handled safely for decades, and it is a sound place to store it on a temporary basis until such time as a permanent repository is developed. As I have mentioned, over 600 shipments have moved across numerous State borders from as far away as from Norfolk, VA, to the deserts of Idaho. And it has been done safely, soundly, and responsibly because of our country's recognition of the risk and the liability to human safety. And we have never compromised a human, and we never will. We cannot kill S. 104. I hope that when the Senator from Alaska places the tabling motion that our colleagues will join with us to table the second-degree amendment because there is no question about its intent. I believe it is not a constitutional amendment. But then again we don't judge the Constitution here on the floor. We only try to live with it and live under it. That is not ours to make that judgment. But I do not believe the courts of our country would allow the Governor of the State of Nevada or Idaho the privilege of absolute cancellation, or absolute border blockage. And that is, of course, in my opinion, what this amendment ultimately does. So I would ask my colleagues to join with us, those who support S. 104, in the need to recognize the importance of the building of a national deep geological repository for high-level materials and high-level nuclear spent fuel and that they would vote down the second-degree amendment and vote for the tabling motion. I yield the floor. Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield on the issue of transportation?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I address this body to express my support of S. 104, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997. Today, I wish to address specifically provisions of the substitute amendment introduced yesterday by the chairman, my colleague from Alaska. Before I discuss the details of our substitute amendment, however, I would like to set the backdrop for my remarks. This week, while debating the motion to proceed, you have heard my colleague from Alaska, the able chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, invite those who say they cannot support provisions of this bill, S. 104, to suggest alternatives. I hope all of my colleagues heard this invitation and I know some of my colleagues accepted this invitation. The provisions of our substitute are a product of this invitation, to participate with us in solving this national problem--the problem of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, and how to address this problem in a timely manner. We have listened to those who have expressed concerns about this legislation. In our effort to continue and enhance the strong bipartisan support for this legislation, our substitute addresses, point-by-point, the concerns expressed by the other side. Let me discuss these changed provisions. First, we had heard concerns that the schedule outlined in S. 104 for the development of an interim storage facility is unrealistic. Mr. President, our substitute now extends the schedule for siting and licensing of the interim storage facility: from the original proposal of the year 1999, we now have a facility operating in 2003. But let me talk about why we have extended the schedule. The interim storage facility will be licensed by fully exercising all provisions of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process. We have extended the schedule for environmental reviews. We have extended the schedule for public involvement in this licensing process. Let me repeat this. We have heard allegations that S. 104 does not allow for public involvement. Public involvement during licensing has always been part of the S. 104 process for an interim storage facility. By extending our schedule to 2003, there will be even more time and ample opportunity for the public to participate in the licensing process. Another provision that is changed by our substitute is that we have shortened the license duration--the operating period--of the interim storage facility from 100 years to 40 years. We have also provided that the amount of fuel and high-level radioactive waste stored in the interim storage facility will be only that amount needed to fulfill the Government's obligations until a permanent repository is available. Mr. President, we are not looking for a blank check on this facility. We propose to build only what is needed to stem the Government's looming financial liability under the lawsuit and the contracts signed in 1982. We have accommodated our critics on their concerns regarding pre- emption of other laws. Our substitute now contains language virtually identical to the preemption provision of the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act. I hope this finally puts to rest the entirely misguided allegation that this legislation will gut environmental laws. That simply has never been the truth. The language of our substitute on the issue of preemption requires compliance with applicable environmental laws and hopefully puts this issue to rest. Finally, our substitute revises the approach to setting an environmental standard for the deep geologic repository. S. 104, as introduced, set a standard of 100 millirem. On Monday, I addressed this body and set this 100 millirem in the context of everyday risks, from day-to-day living. I noted for my colleagues that we receive an annual radiation dose of 80 millirem simply from working day-to-day in the Capitol Building--a product of the granite and other building materials here. We have listened, however, to the concerns that this legislation should allow a risk-based standard. We have heard suggestions that this legislation should adopt the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences. As I have stated, in our openness to enhancing the broad, bipartisan support already enjoyed by this legislation, we have listened to these suggestions. Therefore, our substitute now requires that the Environmental Protection Agency determine a risk-based radiation standard for the repository. Our substitute directs that the Environmental Protection Agency set this radiation standard in accordance with the National Academy of Sciences recommendations. Mr. President, I commend my colleague, the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Senator from Alaska, in conducting a process for developing this legislation, and this substitute, that I believe to be unprecedented in its openness and its willingness to hear and respond to the concerns of our opponents. When this substitute and the Committee amendments are considered in their totality, I can firmly state that this legislation will decisively deal with the issue of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, and it will deal with this issue in the most stringent, most safe, and most environmentally sound manner. S. 104, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997, will allow the Government to fulfill the contractual obligation it assumed, under the law passed by this body in 1982. The deadline for action on this obligation is just 9 months away. I urge my colleagues to consider thoroughly the changes made by this substitute, to consider the basis for any concerns they may have had. I assert that, with these changes, there simply are no possible reasons for any action other than support of final passage of S. 104.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise to join Senators Hutchison of Texas and McCain, Chairman Stevens, our majority leader, Senator Lott, and others, as an original cosponsor of the Government Shutdown Prevention Act. Under this bill, if fiscal year 1998 starts before any of the 13 regular appropriations bills become law, no part of the Government would shut down because of the delay. Funding would automatically continue at 98 percent of fiscal year 1997 levels. Some of us feel 98 percent is too high. And automatic continuing appropriations may not be the perfect way to fund programs. But this process would meet two important tests, best described by two old, familiar rules of thumb: There is an old saying: ``When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.'' And we all know the First Rule of Medicine: ``Do no harm.'' These two rules of thumb explain why we need the Government Shutdown Prevention Act. This is not a long-term, structural change in the budget process. It's not a plan to balance the budget. But it is a very much-needed stopgap reform, in case of another budget impasse. Indeed, it may prevent such an impasse. It will help us work toward a balanced budget, without disrupting the lives and work of millions of innocent bystanders, both inside and outside the Federal Government. The first step toward balancing the budget is, stop digging. For 36 of the last 37 years, the government has overspent. Every year, no matter what the process, no matter what the negotiations, spending goes up. Many times--not just last year--liberals have threatened to shut down the government if they didn't get their spending hikes. This bill says, ``No More!'' to that upward spiral. If there's gridlock, at least spending will not go up as a result. It will go down, just slightly. We also need to remind the budget doctors: Do no harm. In the last two Government shutdowns, in Idaho--We had a VA hospital wonder if it would have critical medicines on hand from week to week; we had small businesses wonder if they should deliver goods that Government offices had ordered--and if they would ever get paid; and we had Government workers first worry about feeding their families and making their house payments, and then outraged that they were ordered not to do the jobs they and other taxpayers were paying for. This bill says, ``We will not allow these innocent Americans to be taken hostage again, by either side in a budget dispute.'' Keeping the Government open at 98 percent of current spending is a responsible, fair, even generous formula. And it is consistent with the reasonable fiscal restraint that we have begun, with the last Congress, to work for. The time to pass this reform is now. Once the appropriations process begins in earnest, too many parties are going to look at any reform like this in terms of whether they win or lose, compared with what's in their appropriations bill, or what they might get if their allies threaten another Government shutdown. Now is the time we are most likely to see this reform judged on it own merits, for what it is: Shutdown prevention, a level playing field, legislation for the public good. I urge my colleagues to join as cosponsors of this bill, and to support every effort to enact this reform into law as quickly as possible.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am today introducing a bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to transfer certain facilities at the Minidoka irrigation project to the Burley Irrigation District. The introduction of this legislation results from a hearing I held in the Senate Energy Committee in the past Congress and is nearly identical to S. 1291 from that Congress. I am introducing this project- specific legislation because it is obvious to me a general transfer bill is not workable; each reclamation project has unique qualities, and projects should be addressed individually or in distinct groupings. The Reclamation Act of 1902 was part of the history of Federal public land laws designed to transfer lands out of Federal ownership and to settle this Nation. The origins of that policy predate the Constitution and derive from the early debates that led to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. The particular needs and circumstances of the arid and semiarid lands west of the 100th meridian led to various proposals to reclaim the lands, including the Desert Land Act and the Carey Act. In his State of the Union Message of 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt finally called for the Federal Government to intervene to develop the reservoirs and works necessary to accomplish such irrigation. The reclamation program was enormously successful. It grew from the irrigation program contemplated by one President Roosevelt to the massive works constructed four decades later by the second President Roosevelt. For those of us in the Northwest, there is a very personal meaning to a line from Woody Guthrie's song about the Columbia that goes: ``your power is turning our darkness to dawn, so roll on Columbia, roll on.'' If what is known now had been known then, some projects may have been constructed differently. However, that is not the question we have before us. The central question is whether and to what extent the Federal Government should seek to transfer the title and responsibility for these projects. Has the Federal mission been accomplished? The best transfer case would be the single purpose irrigation or municipal and industrial [M&I] system that is fully repaid, operation has long since been transferred, and the water rights are held privately. That is the case with the Burley Irrigation District transfer. The transfer of title is not a new idea. Authority to transfer title to the All American Canal is contained in section 7 of the Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928. General authority is contained in the 1955 Distribution Systems Loan Act. Recently, Congress passed legislation dealing with Elephant Butte and Vermejo. The Burley Irrigation District is part of the Minidoka project that was built under the authorization of the 1902. Reclamation Act. By a contract executed in 1926, the District assumed the operation and maintenance of the system. All construction contracts and costs for the canals system, pumping plants, power house, transmission lines and other improvements have been paid in full. Contracts for storage space at Minidoka, American Falls, and Palisades reservoirs have been paid in full, along with all maintenance fees. This project is a perfect example of the Federal Government maintaining only a bare title, and that title should now be transferred to the project recipients who have paid for the facilities and the rights of the Burley Irrigation District.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. If you are waiting for a clarification, I am more than happy to go ahead and speak and allow interruption at anytime necessary to clarify.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, the unanimous consent that our chairman has just put before the Senate and has been accepted is good news. It is good news that we can move immediately to consideration of S. 104 starting tomorrow afternoon. I think it also portends what we all know here, that S. 104 has a substantial majority support in this Senate and the Senators from Nevada recognize, and we appreciate their recognition of the fact, that this is an issue that is of national scope. While I understand and appreciate their strong defense of Nevada, I also can recognize the need to speak nationally about a national problem and the responsiveness of States, like yours and like mine, who wish to find safe, sound, environmentally recognized storage locations for both high-level waste and nuclear spent fuel, to seek that location in the Yucca Mountain facility that is currently under investigation. What I wish to do this afternoon is address several points that have been raised by my colleagues from Nevada, some of them yesterday, and some of them today. Before I do that, however, I want to turn briefly to the subject of underground nuclear weapons testing. Yesterday, I addressed this body and discussed in general terms the Nevada test site. I referred to a photo which I have here again behind me which is the Nevada test site. I asked my assembled colleagues to consider whether an interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel and waste could really have a detrimental impact on this land. Every one of the pockmarks in the landscape is a product of underground explosions of nuclear devices. This is the most exploded area on the face of the Earth, maybe other than where the late Soviet Union once did its underground testing, once it had stopped its atmospheric testing. What I am suggesting is that this is not a pristine environment. It is a place where it is reasonable and responsible, if the kinds of geologic testing that are now going on confirm the fact that we can build an underground deep geologic repository near this location, then we can put an interim storage facility here it would ultimately serve as a receiving and conditioning facility for transferring the waste to the deep underground geologic storage. Weapons explosions have gone on here for decades. As I listened to my colleague, the senior Senator from Nevada yesterday, I got the sense that he is dead set against any nuclear materials in his State of Nevada. All I have to do is remind the Senators of Nevada, this is Nevada. This is where, for decades, our nuclear testing has gone on, on Federal properties, in that State. Is it not reasonable to assume that the Senate ought to have the right to look at and make consideration of this facility as an interim site? I recall, however, that last year my colleague from Nevada did support the restart of underground nuclear testing at this very site. Now, Mr. President, I do not mention this to be critical to any Member who supported the testing program--the kind of program which is vital to both States and to our national interests. Defense missions are important, and we have to recognize and balance the issues. When I say that, of course, I defend the right of my colleagues to defend their interest. But it is time we look at national interests in the context and in the balance. Let us talk about what underground nuclear tests involve. These pockmarks, as you see here, represent the drilling of a deep hole and the exploding of a nuclear device within that. These explosions leave all of these same nuclear components--the same ones that we talked about as being contained in the spent fuel and the high- level waste that we want to dispose of in an underground storage facility near the test site. I suggest, Mr. President, the kind of storage we are talking about is going to be quantum safer, quantum safer, than the kind of explosive activities that went on this terrain during the past decades. Nuclear testing was allowed at this site for decades. To our knowledge it has not caused serious concerns for the water table, or the types of standards we are requiring for a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. Now, I ask my colleagues to consider this. I want to quote from my former colleague, the Senator from Louisiana, Bennett Johnston, when we debated this matter last session. This is Senator Bennett Johnston speaking. ``If it is safe to conduct hundreds of nuclear tests, it is much more safe to store * * * nuclear waste under Yucca Mountain in containers which themselves pose quite a barrier to any contamination.'' Now, I wish to address several comments that I heard yesterday, because I believe some clarification, or even correction, is necessary. We heard from our Nevada colleagues that the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board has said that an interim storage facility is simply not needed. For the benefit of my colleagues who were not present at the committee hearing on February 5, I am compelled to quote directly from the Chairman of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, Dr. Cohon, in his testimony before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Under the heading of ``Key Conclusions,'' Dr. Cohon said: ``A centralized storage facility will be needed.'' Let me repeat that. Dr. Cohon, Chairman of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, said: ``A centralized storage facility will be needed. Planning for it should begin immediately.'' However, he did go on to state: ``There are no compelling technical or safety reasons to move spent fuel to a centralized storage facility for the next few years.'' ``Technical or safety reasons * * *.'' Mr. President, you will notice that Dr. Cohon is silent on the other reasons--contractual obligations, lawsuits, failure to implement the 1998 deadline of the current waste act, financial liabilities. Furthermore, as we all know and the DOE has acknowledged, it will take more than a few years to license and construct an interim storage facility. Even if we were to begin today, right now, immediately, it is still going to take time to make it happen and to make it happen through all of the Federal laws and with an environmentally safe, sound, and acceptable design. Dr. Cohon testified that steps leading to centralized storage ``should begin immediately.'' That is exactly what Dr. Cohon was speaking of. S. 104 directs that the steps leading to that interim storage be initiated. Let me quote from the board's second key conclusion on the interim storage: ``Significant advantages can be derived from siting a storage facility adjacent to the repository.'' That is what the board has said. That is exactly what S. 104 does. For some reason, it is very difficult, if not absolutely incorrect, to portray that S. 104 is somewhere out of step with the current Nuclear Waste Policy Act or with the board's finding--this board of technical and professional people who had been brought together for the purpose of establishing the findings necessary to build a permanent repository. Dr. Cohon goes on to recommend that an interim storage facility be located at the Nevada Test Site only after site viability is determined. Mr. President, let me dismiss another allegation from our opponents-- that S. 104 short-circuits the viability process. It flat doesn't happen, and the bill doesn't proceed in that manner. S. 104 sites an interim storage facility at the Nevada Test Site after site viability is complete--not before viability, not instead of viability, but after viability. That is what the language of the proposed law says. I am growing weary of a variety of charges that relate to S. 104 short-circuiting the science of the waste program. That is the argument that has been placed by my opponents, that somehow the scientific progress gets short-circuited. That is unfounded. It is done to create fear among those who have not studied the issue thoroughly. It is always important on issues like nuclear waste and high-level nuclear radioactive materials that science be a major player. Therefore, it is always easy to wave the flag of ``no science'' and say it is an unsafe action or we should not be doing that. That simply is not the case here; it has never been the case. The scientists have been at the forefront of all of these actions, and they have led the development of the whole process to the point of where we are. This brings me to another area that has been the subject of misinformation. My guess is that it is just going to be the subject of misinformation throughout the debate--the issue of transportation. During my remarks yesterday, I went through, in some detail, the tests that are required to be performed before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will license the containers that are used to transport spent nuclear fuel over highways or railways. What I would like to do is repeat that this has never been an issue, and it isn't an issue now. That isn't to say it isn't a political issue; it is a political issue, but it cannot be argued on scientific grounds, on engineering grounds and, most important, after the 2,500 loads of nuclear material that have traveled across this country over the last several decades, it cannot even be argued after the fact that somehow there was an accident that resulted in human injury as a result of radiation. There were accidents, but the containers and the material were totally safe. We did hear an allegation yesterday that it is so dangerous to transport these materials that we have never successfully licensed a shipping vessel for transportation of spent fuel. The fact is, not only have spent fuel shipping containers been successfully tested and licensed, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission currently has over 20 different types of shipping containers--not 20 different containers, but 20 different types of shipping containers--that it has successfully licensed. Let me repeat that. It has successfully licensed them for use over highways or railways. These are containers that have passed all of the tremendously rigorous tests that I outlined for you yesterday, such as the drop test, the puncture test, the fire test, the water immersion test; all of them have been licensed under those standards. This brings me to another erroneous charge that I wish to dismiss. It is the charge that these testing requirements are not adequate to meet real-life accidents. Oh, my goodness. I can't imagine that even could be suggested. You don't drop a metal container 50 feet onto a hard, immovable concrete slab and have that container bounce and stay whole time after time and even suggest that the test itself wasn't real life. It is extraordinary. It is well beyond the norm. We have heard that the fire test requires a temperature of only 1,475 degrees Fahrenheit and that gasoline fires can burn hotter than this. Well, we need to look at all of the parameters of the fire test to see if it is tough enough for real-life accident conditions. In response to the gasoline concern, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was asked to investigate if the fire temperature required for testing was hot enough. They concluded that when you look at all of the fire parameters, not just temperature, but duration, insulation, how the container is positioned in the flame, look at all of these factors in combination, actual fires would not exceed in overall severity the fire test that the shipping containers must go through. Now, this is one of the best scientific labs in the world. This is the best test that you can create anywhere to check the integrity of the container. After doing so, they said that the container was adequate to meet the standards and the risks involved. The overall point is that these issues and allegations have been investigated, tested, studied, and, in every case, they have been ultimately debunked. Again, my argument, my premise is that this debate has nothing to do with science, nothing to do with geology, to date, nothing to do with engineering facts. Those have all been established for decades. Those facts are unrefutable. It has everything to do with politics. There are enough studies and papers on these issues to fill technical libraries at every national laboratory across the country, including the Idaho National Laboratory. It is time to move beyond the hyperbole and scare tactics. S. 104, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997, will allow the Government to fulfill the contractual obligation it assumed, under the law passed by this body in 1982. The deadline for action on this obligation is just 9 months away. S. 104 will resolve the question of what to do with spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in a timely manner. So I urge my colleagues, as we begin this debate tomorrow on S. 104, to recognize that there are facts and there are fictions, and, most important, as is quite typical on this floor, there are politics. The politics of this issue is, you don't want it to happen in your backyard, even if it's now in your backyard. You don't want it to be moved across the country, although we have moved it for years with no human risk from radiation ever having happened. We have the greatest record in the world for transportation. We have built the best science that national engineering can allow. So what is the problem? Well, the problem is if you can argue the issue long enough and if you can drag your feet long enough, you can bring an industry that provides 20 percent of the electrical power of this country to its knees, because it is the logic of those who substantially oppose the nuclear industry that if you don't responsibly deal with the waste created by that industry, ultimately the American public will no longer tolerate the generation of that waste and the industry itself has to be shut down. What we are trying to do now is not deal with what I have just said, but deal with the waste we have already created. We have, for four decades in this country, created waste, whether it be defense waste, Government waste, or whether it is commercial spent fuel coming from commercial reactors that generate 20 percent of the electrical output of this country. It is only responsible that we deal with the waste we have, making sure, as other Congresses have concluded, that it is in a single, safe, deep geologic repository where we can rest assured of the kinds of environmental integrity and safety the American public expects. That is really what S. 104 is all about--Federal obligation, Federal responsibility, liability to taxpayers, sound environmental activity, and wanting to find that single safe repository to which all of the waste from 41 States and over 80 locations can go. I think it is important that we move ahead in a timely fashion. I am pleased we can move to the debate tomorrow. I hope that we can deal with the necessary amendments that would come up and that by the end of the week, we can move to final passage on this important legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, thank you. I thank my chairman for yielding, and I am pleased to hear the news that we can move to this bill without cloture, starting tomorrow. It appears that agreement is very close at hand. In fact, I understand it is fine now, so I yield back to the chairman. Unanimous-Consent Agreement

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, regaining my time, we are certainly going to have ample time to debate the budget and budget issues. But I did think it was important to respond to the minority leader as it relates to his overall statement today and what we have done here in the last month that I think was an effort to accommodate this President. Now it is the job of the Congress to get on with their business, and they will, and those priorities will be well spelled out, and we will continue our efforts toward a balanced budget and a reduced deficit which the President did not honor in his commitment of his new budget, although what the Senator from Nevada has said certainly is a valid statement. The Congress has participated jointly in that.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, before I speak in relation to the motion to proceed on S. 104, let me only say to the minority leader of the Senate, with due respect to him--and I do respect Senator Daschle--the Senate and the leadership of the Senate and the House, for well over a month and a half, deferred to the President and the responsibility of the President in submitting a budget to Congress. I sat on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and listened to our President refer to the submitting of a balanced budget; 12 times in the State of the Union address our President spoke of a balanced budget. We received that budget. No one chose, in their own good form, to criticize it. In fact, we sent it off to be analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office. And it came back. I must report to the minority leader that it was not a balanced budget, and we all know that now. It was well out of balance by nearly $100 billion for the 4 years of this President, with the inclusion of a major tax increase and some tax cuts. And then, of course, the year after this President leaves office, the tax cuts go away, the tax increases stay, and a major cut in programs or a major increase in revenue. That is why we haven't dealt with the budget, because we were willing to give this President the benefit of the doubt. Certainly the Senator knows that, and it was a fair willingness on our part. Now that that day has passed, the Senate is beginning to work its will on the budget. We first wanted the President to have a fair and uncriticized opportunity, and that is exactly what he got. But in all fairness, the public now knows that this President's budget includes major spending increases and major new Federal programs and no real commitment to balance, not in the context of the political reality that certainly the minority leader operates in and that we operate in. No Congress has made those kinds of dramatic cuts, nor, frankly, have they raised that much revenue as the President is proposing, because while he appears to give on one hand, he rapidly takes away on the other. In all instances, his program spending wraps up, a major increase in 1 year of $25 billion of new domestic spending in this country. That is what we are wrestling with. Certainly, this Senate is going to deal with the budget, and they are going to deal with it in a very timely manner. What I hope we can do is something that I know the minority leader will appreciate and that is to deal with it in a bipartisan way. That we can accomplish and we should accomplish. Already, moderate and conservative Democrats are speaking up and saying they can't deal with the President's budget, not in the context of our commitment. Our commitment was that if we would not support a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, we could produce a balanced budget without it. Now, the Senator knows how disappointed I was that he worked so hard to destroy the vote on a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution, because I worked a long time to get that because I think that without it we won't get a balanced budget. But all the while he was working to change that vote and worked with the administration to do so, there was a constant drumbeat of promise to get us to a balanced budget by the year 2002. I know that the Senator was sincere in that commitment. We are committed to that commitment. But we cannot get there with the President's schedule of new spending, and we cannot get there with the President's new tax increases, and we cannot get there with doing all of the cuts and all of the changes in the fifth year after this President has left office. It must start now. It must ramp its way toward the year 2002. Let it be said--and I think it is important that it be said--that for the last 2 weeks, with the President's commitment and with the leadership's commitment, meetings have gone on. I think the only problem is that everybody has been sitting around at those meetings talking about how delightful it is that they are meeting, instead of time lines and commitments to the American people meeting what we have said to the American people we would give them, and that is, of course, a balanced budget by 2002. We need to start this year, not 4 years out. We don't need major tax increases to get there, and we can do so with reasonable responses to our domestic spending, not major new programs, but reprogramming, giving the priorities where it ought to be. Many of those is where the President knows he wants them, and we are willing to participate in that. So the budget process is now well underway. But it took a month's detour, with the commitment that it would allow the time for the President's budget to play out. That has now played out. We now need to get on to the real budgeting that is the responsibility of the Congress. I would be happy to let the minority leader comment, if he wishes, before I go on with my discussion on the nuclear waste bill.

Mr. CRAIG. Apart from the debate on the nuclear waste bill.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I assumed the minority leader was speaking on his own time.

Mr. CRAIG. I would be happy to yield briefly to the Senator from Nevada.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Kristine Svinicki, a legislative fellow who works with my office, be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of the debate on S. 104.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, when it comes to establishing national priorities--and I know what our President is doing in the area that I am about to discuss now--it is a great frustration to many States across our Nation because this President refuses--I repeat, refuses--to take a firm position and establish as a national priority in this country the appropriate handling of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste in a way that is acceptable to the American people and commensurate with the public law. So what I am about to speak to is a piece of Senate legislation that I and the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee introduced on this floor last year, and that we passed last year in the U.S. Senate with 63 votes--63 bipartisan voices that said that this administration was wrong with their policy, and wrong with their priorities when it came to honoring public law and the 42 States that felt it necessary that this President honor public law. I am talking about the expeditious and timely management of high-level nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel. For all the right reasons, our Nation has spent a long time generating radioactive materials--nearly five decades. Most of this material is the byproduct of two principal activities: National defense operations, and commercial nuclear power plants. While it was our national policy for well over five decades that the Federal Government have oversight and primacy in the area of management and control of nuclear materials, it is no longer, tragically enough, a high-level policy of this country that is discernible by administrative position and by the clearness of administrative leadership. That is why we are here today on the floor of the U.S. Senate debating a timely action that this country must take to be responsible for the five decades of activity in the generation of high-level radioactive waste. What I am talking about clearly is a national concern. To ignore this responsibility would be unwise, irresponsible, and in some instances, with regard to taking timely action, unsafe. I am pleased now to rise in support of Senate bill 104, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997. As I mentioned, last year I and the Senator from Alaska were here on the floor with the Senators from Nevada debating a similar bill, although this year we have changed the bill some by actions in the committee itself and by possible amendments that will be made here on the floor during the course of the debate and the final vote on this legislation. What we are talking about is the timely storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste from our Nation's defense program and from, of course, the commercial nuclear power plants. Senate bill 104 creates an integrated system that will ensure construction of an interim storage facility and permanent repository to manage spent fuel and high-level waste that is currently stored in over 80 sites in 41 States across this country. I have in the backdrop a map of our country that demonstrates the locations of reactors and storage sites, 80 sites in 41 States. Yet our administration basically has had no policy for nearly two decades on this issue. We spoke as a Congress and we spoke as a people in 1982: That there needed to be a national policy and a national program. The legislation that we have before us, in my opinion, demonstrates that kind of critical need, and the need also to operate and respond in a timely fashion. Transferring nuclear waste from the many defense and commercial nuclear sites to a single Federal facility beginning in 1998 was the intent of the Congress and the President of the United States when the Nuclear Waste Policy Act passed in 1982. It became law. It was signed by the President. It was a national commitment. It was this Nation speaking to the need to handle the kind of waste that I am talking about and to do so in a safe and responsible fashion. Unbelievably, we are less than one year away--just 9 months--from the date when the Department of Energy is obligated by the law that was passed in 1982 and is obligated under contract, in response to the law signed and honored by our Government, to accept the waste. Now we have to come to the floor in the 11th hour and plead with this administration to come with us in the shaping of national policy to deal with this issue. Just last year the U.S. Court of Appeals reaffirmed the Federal obligation. The Nevada test site was selected in the early 1970's as one of the sites under consideration for a geologic repository. This site has been under study for now over two decades by scientists and engineers. Here is a photograph of the Nevada test site where the interim storage facility would be located. Scientists and engineers at Yucca Mountain near this site where a permanent geologic repository for these high- level wastes would be placed have conducted the most thorough and comprehensive geological survey ever undertaken on any piece of property on the face of the Earth. Let me repeat that claim because I believe it to be valid. The site that we are looking at, the Yucca Mountain deep geologic repository, has been studied more thoroughly, more comprehensively, both from a geologic point of view, from a seismic point of view, and from the overall need to meet the certification process for it to be a permanent, safe, high-level waste repository--that site has been more comprehensively studied than any piece of real estate on the face of the Earth. During all of this time and all of the studies, nothing has been discovered which would indicate that this site is unsuitable for use as a repository. Because of the endless bureaucratic delays that have plagued the program, the Federal Government now says it will not have a repository operating until the year 2010 at the earliest. Remember, this was a Federal Government that in 1982 signed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act committing by contract to take the waste by 1998, 9 months from now. Yet this administration and their representatives at the Department of Energy shrugged their shoulders and said, ``Well, gee, the year 2010 will have to do because we just can't get there.'' Yet the courts last year said ``Wrong. Foul ball. Go back to home plate. You have to abide by the law.'' And the Department of Energy said, ``Yes. You are right. We do have to do that. We recognized that.'' This is 12 years after the Federal Government is contractually obligated to take title to and remove spent fuel from civilian power plants. Electric consumers and taxpayers have committed approximately $12 billion solely to study, test and build a radioactive waste management system. So when the Federal Government made its obligation in 1982 to the taxpayer, but most importantly the ratepayer of the utilities that were generating electricity through nuclear power, and the Government owed this commitment by paying out money to build the facility, to do the siting, to do the studies, to do all of the test work and to have a facility ready to operate and receive by 1998. That was a $12 billion commitment and $4.5 billion of that money has already been spent. This chart will give you an idea of where the moneys come from. So, in other words, these were the folks that made the commitments. These were the folks that signed the contracts. These were the folks that believed that the Federal Government was an honorable agent that would honor those contracts. And the courts just this past year said, ``You are right. The Federal Government has to do it.'' And the administration says, ``Well, we can't do it. In fact, we probably won't be able to do it until 2010, or sometime beyond.'' We enjoy the benefits of having the world's most reliable and powerful electricity supplies to drive our economy. In supplying more than 20 percent of the Nation's electricity, nuclear energy is part of the foundation of our Nation's high standard of living and economic growth. Twenty percent of the lights in our country, of the industry in our country, of the economy of our country, is fueled by nuclear power plants. Mr. President, here is the thing that frustrates me most. I am going to quote from the President of the United States, this President. This is the President who doesn't have any idea how he will honor the commitment that the courts said just this last year he has to honor. This is the President who, in my opinion, has established the most antinuclear policy and attitude of any President since Harry Truman. Yet, this President this year in his fiscal 1998 budget request for the Department of Energy includes the following statement. He says, or the Department of Energy says, this President's Department of Energy: [Nuclear power] plants represent a $200 billion investment by electric ratepayers and provide reliable baseload power without emitting harmful pollutants such as those associated with global climate change. In other words, it is this President who recognizes that nuclear power or electrical power generated by nuclear energy is the safest, the cleanest, and provides a huge investment of $200 billion. Yet, this is the President who shrugs his shoulders and says, ``But we don't know what to do with the waste. We do not have a policy. We cannot react.'' I agree with the statement that I just quoted from the Department of Energy's fiscal year 1998 budget. Nuclear power is a major generator. Nuclear power is safe. Nuclear power is clean. Responsible management and disposal of spent fuel from these plants is a vital component of the energy security of this country and is, in my opinion, the No. 1 environmental issue that we face. Managing the waste stream safely and soundly is the No. 1 environmental issue in 41 States at 81 sites across this country. S. 104 authorizes construction of an interim storage facility on the Nevada test site near Yucca Mountain. This facility will be constructed in full compliance with the regulations of, and will be licensed by, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It is an interesting drawing we have up here on this chart that shows how simple the technology to store this fuel is, but what is important to understand is that you do it by the rules and you do it by the science, the technology, and the engineering of the day. The interim storage capacity provided for in the legislation would stem the Government's looming financial liability in its current lawsuit with utilities. In other words, I have just entered into a new dimension in this battle that we now have going over--how to be responsible and where to be responsible and when to be responsible as it relates to the appropriate management of spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste. On January 31 of this year, 46 State agencies and 36 utility companies filed suit against the Department of Energy in Federal court. The lawsuit asks the court to order immediate action by the Department of Energy to comply with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 by beginning to remove spent nuclear fuel from reactor sites by January 31, 1998, as specified under the act. The Department of Energy not only has failed to take any steps to fulfill this obligation, as I have spoken to earlier, but, rather, it has acknowledged it will not begin waste acceptance in 1998 and has solicited suggestions on what it might do in light of this failure. Let me repeat. Here is the Department of Energy that has basically said: We cannot do it, so tell us how to do it. Give us some ideas of how we, as Government, can honor the commitment that we have made under the law. Let me suggest to our Secretary of Energy and to the President that the way you honor the commitment is S. 104. Don't fight the Congress. Don't fight a majority bipartisan effort here. Come with us, work with us in solving this problem as S. 104 provides. Not only does it recognize the commitment by law, but it recognizes the need to respond in a timely fashion. Just last week our new Secretary of Energy, Federico Pena, met with nuclear energy executives. Despite the potential for billions of dollars of liability judgments against his Department, Secretary Pena and the administration again failed to offer any concrete solution to this issue. Why did they fail to offer it? Because they do not want to recognize the need for S. 104. They do not want to recognize the commitment they have made, or at least are responsible for under the law. In the course of this debate, you will hear and you have already heard the two Senators from the State of Nevada talk about the issue of transportation. Our opponents will raise the specter of a mobile Chernobyl. This fear-mongering is simply not supported by facts. Let me digress here to talk about the safety of transportation for a moment. In doing so, let me make this statement. I have had the privilege over the course of my time in service in the U.S. Congress from the State of Idaho to deal with a lot of issues, all of them or most all of them were political, but 99 percent of them are not just political. Some of them deal with economics. Some of them had differing opinions as to the engineering or the science or the technology involved in a given issue. But never have I dealt with an issue that, in my opinion, is exclusively political--not scientific, not engineering, not mechanical in any way. Because when it comes to the management of nuclear waste, none of those charges have any base to them. The only dynamics in this debate is politics. Where do you want to put the waste? Because, once that decision is made, our science, our engineering, and our technology knows without question that it can be effectively and responsibly stored and safely stored in an environmentally sound way. Those decisions were made--that it be a deep geologic repository. So, when it comes to the movement of that waste to that repository, the same argument holds true. The fact is, there have been over 2,500 commercial shipments of spent fuel in the United States in the timeframe that I have talked about; the same timeframe we have dealt with the management and the handling of nuclear waste. There has not been a single death or injury from the radioactive nature of the cargo. Let me repeat. There has never been a single death or injury from the radioactive nature of the cargo. What am I saying when I say that? I am saying that the integrity of the shipment vessel in which high-level nuclear waste or nuclear fuel was transported was never breached, even though there were some accidents. There is no other product or waste material transportation in our country today that can make that claim--none, except nuclear waste. It has been transported more safely with no escape of radioactivity, and therefore no human injury resulting from it, and transported more safely than any other waste, toxic substance, or human-harming substance in the United States. That is a unique claim. The reason that claim can be made was the understanding at the front end of the need to transport this waste in a safe manner and the importance of the vessel in which it was transported in accomplishing this. Let me add to these national statistics by describing the experience of my State, because my State receives high-level nuclear waste shipments. There have been over 600 shipments of Navy fuel and over 4,000 other shipments of radioactive material to my State. I will say that while some Idahoans resist and speak out about these shipments, none of them have been harmed. There has never been a spill. There has never been an accident that resulted in the radioactivity of the cargo being released. There have never been--let me repeat once more, for the record--injuries related to the radioactive nature of shipments. Why? Why the great record? Well, largely because of what I just said, because there was rigorous attention paid in the very early days, recognizing the need for safe transportation of these materials. In fact, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ``The safety record for spent fuel shipments in the United States and in other industrialized nations is enviable. Of the thousands of shipments completed over the last 30 years, none have resulted in an identifiable injury through a release of radioactive material.'' An example of this care and handling is the testing sequence to which spent fuel packages must be subjected. Once again, we have talked about the routes. You have seen the picture. Here are some examples of the kind of testing that has gone on to create the integrity of the shipping vessel that allows me to make the claims on the floor of the U.S. Senate that I have just made. For a spent fuel package design to receive a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it must be demonstrated that the cask can survive the following tests, in sequence: A 30-foot drop onto an unyielding surface. In other words, I am talking about a concrete slab; then, a shorter drop onto a vertical steel punch bar. In other words, dropping a vessel onto a steel spike, if you will, of the size that could fully penetrate the vessel; that it be engulfed in fire for 30 minutes; finally, submerged in 3 feet of water; and separately, that the cask must not leak for 1 hour under 200 meters of water. That is the rigorousness of the testing and that is why, of course, I can make the claims I made, that no spills have resulted. To further ensure that this care and caution be continued, we have supported an amendment offered in the committee by our colleague from Oregon, Senator Wyden. All shipments pursuant to S. 104 will be conducted in full compliance with all relevant Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Transportation regulations, in addition to complying with the Department of Energy's requirements for advance notification and emergency response. My colleagues from Nevada have been very vocal on this issue of transportation. I would like to quote from a letter dated March 11, 1997, sent by the Western Governors' Association, of which Nevada is a member. This letter went to Senator Wyden, giving the Western Governors' Association response to Senator Wyden's transportation amendment that our committee accepted, that is now within S. 104. The letter reads: [Y]our transportation amendments to S. 104, dated March 11, are generally consistent with the WGA's adopted policies for the safe and uneventful transport of radioactive waste through western States. We feel that the committee action has strengthened the already substantial transportation safeguards of S. 104, as introduced. The point of this whole comment was that not only had we made significant strides to ensure questions about transportation, because the vessel itself is not of issue, in my opinion, nor are there scientists or engineers that would argue it. The other question happens to deal with the general nature of exposure, and what is 100 millirems. We are going to talk about this in the debate. Already the Senators from Nevada have had this issue on the charts before us. I think it is important that we set radiation exposure levels in context, so that we can compare them to exposures that we assume routinely in our day-to-day living. Mr. President, it is something that not all of us recognize or understand, but the fact is that we receive radiation by just being alive under natural environments, whether it is your relationship in altitude and exposure to the Sun or whether it is the fact that you are encased in granite or marble. For example, we receive 80 millirems dosage on an annual basis by merely serving in the U.S. Senate. Why? Because of the general radioactive nature of granite and marble. That is the way our world is made up. In your State of Colorado, and in your city of Denver, residents receive approximately a 53-millirem annual dose because you live in a mile-high city where the air is thinner and your exposure to solar radiation is simply higher. It is the character of the environment we live in. When I hear suggestions that we set exposure levels at 4 millirems for groundwater or setting a level of 15 millirems, I am reminded of the quote I heard when this debate occurred earlier. It talked about the differences of exposure in, again, Denver--and I do not know why they like to use Denver, CO, as an example--the difference between 4 millirems exposure for groundwater and setting it at 15 millirems is a difference of standing up or sitting down in Denver, CO, as it relates to your relative exposure to radiation and the Sun. I doubt that anybody in the State of Colorado, or in the city of Denver, thinks that they are more exposed standing or less exposed seated, to the natural environmental radiation that occurs there and has always occurred there because of the altitude and the atmosphere. What I am trying to make here is a point that if you want to stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate and debate millirems in the 15 or the 4 context, you do not have a point. It cannot be made. It does not make sense, because you receive them in the natural environment of Denver or you receive them in the natural environment by being encased in a building of sandstone and marble and granite right here in the U.S. Senate. That is the reality of what we have. That is the situation that we face. Support of S. 104 is coming from all quarters, including State and local government officials, public utility commissioners, newspapers, editorial boards, labor unions, chambers of commerce, national trade associations, the electric utilities, just to name a few. A similar measure, as I have mentioned, S. 1936, passed this body last year with strong bipartisan support. I know that many people would prefer not to address the problem of spent nuclear fuel disposal. For this Congress not to address this problem, in my opinion, would just be irresponsible. We cannot let the source of 20 percent of our country's electricity drown in waste, nor can we allow our Government to default on contractual obligations that it has made. This Government's default would leave the taxpayers of this country vulnerable to a financial liability as high as $80 billion. As I close, let me use these examples. The minority leader and I were just discussing budgets and who is on first and who is on second and who proposed and who has not proposed. The bottom line is we are all concerned about the budget and, most importantly, we are all concerned about getting it to balance in a responsible fashion and not doing so with major tax increases. Yet, if this Government walks away from its commitment under the law, it may well be placing itself in a liability environment that could equal upwards of $80 billion. How does that translate? That translates to an additional $1,300 per family in the United States. On the dollar and cents costs, let me relate them to you as I understand them. If we do not assume the responsibility and deal in a timely fashion, the cost of storage of spent fuel, because the courts have said to the Federal Government, ``You will take charge of it. It will become your obligation,'' it will start costing the taxpayers money. That cost could go as high as $19.6 billion. Return of nuclear waste fees could be $8.5 billion. Interest on nuclear waste fees, $15 to $27.8 billion, depending on the interest rates used, and consequential damage for shutdown of potential nuclear powerplants that would lose their storage capability and would not be allowed to license new storage capability could be upwards of $24 billion. When the bipartisan leadership of the House and Senate met with the President and the Vice President some weeks ago, our leader, Trent Lott, said to the President, ``It is our priority to deal with the nuclear waste issue.'' The President deferred to Al Gore and said, ``It is not ours,'' and the Vice President largely said, ``Leave it where it is until the year 2010.'' Eighty billion dollars and 2010? Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, wake up. Not only will the taxpayers not allow that, but the politics of this country will not tolerate that. We must deal with this issue, and S. 104 is clearly a way of dealing with it. The United States has benefited from the many uses of nuclear materials which have deterred a global conflict. Our nuclear fuels now generate electricity in a clean, non-air- polluting way. Our generation now must take the responsibility that it has to properly manage spent nuclear fuels for the defense program of our country and for the 110 commercial powerplants that it obligated itself to do so in 1982. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997, the legislation that we are now asking for the right to proceed with on the floor and deal with in a timely fashion, S. 104, is the proper way to move. It allows our citizens the comfort of knowing that our Government has acted responsibly to assure environmentally safe long-term storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive material. I hope that tomorrow evening, when we vote cloture that would give the Senate the right to proceed to debate on the legislation, that we can have the kind of overwhelming, bipartisan support of the type that we have received in the past. Mr. President, I believe we will get that support. I believe it because it is now time to deal with this issue. I hope that during the course of the debate on the floor of the Senate and action that will follow in the House, that somehow and in some way we can catch the attention of this administration, to do what they are legally and contractually obligated to do, so that we can stand bipartisan, shoulder to shoulder, in a national policy that deals with this issue in a way that we can all be proud of. Then we can say to our fellow citizens, ``Yes, when the Government makes a commitment, when the Government signs a contract, when the Government obligates resources and taxes it citizenry for a dedicated cause, that cause can be responded to in a timely fashion.'' S. 104 allows us to do so, and I hope that by tomorrow evening we will have the support to vote cloture. I yield the floor. Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am very pleased that the Senate is now prepared to take up the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997. It is time that this Congress clarify its intentions for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. It is for this reason that I introduced the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1996, which passed successfully in this body last year, and it is why I am a sponsor of S. 104 this year. We must resolve the problem that this Nation faces with disposing of nuclear material. Congress must recognize its responsibility to set a clear and definitive nuclear disposal policy. With the passage of this legislation in the last Congress, the Senate expressed its will that Government fulfill its responsibilities. One major provision of this legislation directs that an interim storage facility be constructed at Area 25 at the Nevada Test Site and that the interim facility be prepared to accept materials by November 30, 1999. The first phase of this two-phase facility will be of a sufficient size to accept spent fuel from commercial reactors, shut down reactors and the Department of Energy. As reported out of Committee, S. 104 includes a provision which I introduced. This provision clarifies Congress' intent to provide for the timely removal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from the Government's national laboratories and defense programs. Under this provision, the Department of Energy is required to remove Government nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel from our national laboratory sites in an amount equal to at least 5 percent of the total waste DOE accepts into the interim storage facility every year. In addition to the billions of dollars that utility ratepayers have contributed to the disposal fund, taxpayers have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to the disposal program for the removal of spent fuel and nuclear waste from the Nation's national laboratory sites. The provision I have sponsored makes good on the Government's commitment to clean up these sites and shows a return on the taxpayer money committed to this disposal program. This provision assures that the spent fuel from the U.S. Navy reactors currently stored at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory will begin to be sent to the interim storage facility beginning in 1999. This is good news for both the DOE and for Idaho. Spent nuclear fuel will be moved out of Idaho well before the agreed date of 2035 called for in the agreement between Idaho Governor Batt, the DOE and the Navy. The fuel that is now temporarily stored in Idaho will be at the designated facility designed for long term disposal. In my opinion, this legislation is important because it closes off the ``escape routes'' that exist in past legislation on this issue and have stymied the opening of a facility that actually accepts spent nuclear fuel and stores or disposes of it at a permanent facility. S. 104 closes these escape routes by specifying an interim facility location and a date for the opening of that facility. Congress must own up to its responsibilities for the disposal of nuclear materials that it assumed through statute in 1982; a responsibility that 40 utilities and other organizations from 23 States are suing the Federal Government right now in the U.S. Court of Appeals to fulfill. The passage of S. 104 will take a major step in that direction and stem the Government's potential liability for failure to fulfill its contractual commitments--a potential hemorrhage of billions of dollars in judgments against the Department of Energy. By this action, spent nuclear fuel that is currently stored at nearly 100 different sites around the country--sites that were never designed for long-term storage--will be move to one central location: A location that is specially designed for such storage. In the course of this debate, we will hear a lot of discussion from those on both sides of this issue about transportation. Those who don't want to address the nuclear waste issue are likely to raise the specter of a ``mobile Chernobyl.'' This scaremongering is simply not supported by the facts. The fact is that there have been over 2,500 commercial shipments of spent fuel in the United States, and that there has not been a single death or injury from the radioactive nature of the cargo. Let me add to these statistics by noting that in my State there have been over 600 shipments of Navy fuel and over 4,000 other shipments of radioactive material. Again, there have been no injuries related to the radioactive nature of these shipments. This is an exemplary safety record--a product of the care and rigorous attention with which these materials are transported. I know that many people would prefer not to address the problem of spent nuclear fuel disposal. But for this Congress not to address the problem would be irresponsible. As the legislative body that sets policy for the Nation, Congress cannot sit by and watch while a key component of the energy security of this Nation, and the source of 20 percent of our country's electricity, nuclear power, drowns in its own waste. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997 will do what neither the 1982 nor the 1987 act accomplished, and that is to definitively resolve the question of what to do with spent nuclear fuel in a timely manner. I look forward to its successful passage.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise to speak on ``A History of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, 1947-1997.'' Fifty years ago, the Senate established the Republican and Democratic policy committees. At the end of the Second World War and at the beginning of the cold war, U.S. Senators had concluded that this venerable old institution needed modernization to enable it to handle the increasingly complex foreign and domestic issues on its agenda, and to hold its own against an expanding presidential influence. From 1945 to 1946, a joint committee chaired by Senator Robert M. LaFollette, Jr., a Republican from Wisconsin, and Representative Mike Monroney, an Oklahoma Democrat, investigated ways to reform the legislative branch. The joint committee proposed creation of professional staffs for each standing committee and allowing Senators and Representatives to appoint administrative assistants. It also recommended expansion of the Legislative Reference Service, now known as the Congressional Research Service. Those reforms were incorporated into the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. One proposal that was not included in the act was the joint committee's recommendation that the Senate and House establish policy committees to assist the parties in promoting their legislative agenda. House Speaker Sam Rayburn feared that such policy committees might threaten his authority and refused to support them. Although the idea was dropped from the Legislative Reorganization Act, it was shortly thereafter incorporated in an appropriations bill but authorized policy committees for the Senate alone. Some time later the House also established policy committees. Chief credit for the policy committees belongs to Ohio Republican Senator Robert A. Taft. As chairman of the Republican Steering Committee, from 1944 to 1946, Taft firmly believed in thorough preparation and expertise. Although Republicans were then in the minority, Taft used the Steering Committee to plan and coordinate the party's legislative program, rather that wait to react defensively against the initiatives of the President and the majority party. Under Taft the Steering Committee helped Republican Senators become better informed on pending issues. His staff ran evening meetings that some called a night school for Senators. The Republican Steering Committee became the model for the proposed policy committees. Indeed, when the policy committees were written into law, the Republican Conference simply redesignated its Steering Committee as the Republican Policy Committee. Chairman Taft and all of the other members of the Steering Committee become the first members of the Policy Committee. The Republican Policy Committee came into existence at the beginning of the 80th Congress, just as Republicans resumed the majority in the Senate and House. The 50th anniversary finds Republicans back in the majority in both Houses of Congress. Over the years the Policy Committee's services and functions have expanded considerably. Since 1947, it has produced the very useful Record Vote Analyses. Since 1956, it has hosted working lunches each week for Republican Senators. Since 1987, it has operated an in-house bulletin-board cable information channel to keep Senators and their staffs apprised of Senate floor activities and the upcoming agenda. In 1995, the Policy Committee stood among the first Senate offices to develop a home page on the Internet's World Wide Web, to provide information inside and outside the Senate on its publications, and to share information on key Republican policies. The Policy Committee staff prepares both brief and indepth reports on the major issues facing the Senate. The Policy Committee conducts seminars for new legislative staff members, and holds issue forums and roundtable discussions for Senators. It also hosts regular meetings for staff directors, legislative directors, and press secretaries. During its first 50 years, the Republican Policy Committee grew into a thriving operation staffed by a variety of experts. Working directly with the Senators, and educating the journalists who report on them, the Policy Committee has assisted Republican Senators in setting policy, enacting legislation, and getting their message out. That is an accomplishment entirely consistent with the goals that Robert Taft set in founding the Republican Policy Committee. The story of how those goals were achieved is contained in the history of the Policy Committee that was prepared by the Senate Historical Office, and will now be available for Senators, staff, students, and the general public. I understand that the Democratic Policy Committee is considering a companion publication, and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate its chairman, Senator Tom Daschle, and cochairman, Senator Harry Reid, on our mutual 50th anniversary.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am proud to join with my colleague from Florida today in the introduction of the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act. In the 104th Congress, I joined as a cosponsor of S. 2019, with a bipartisan effort in the Senate to deal with this issue. I know that some of my colleagues will question the need for Congress to take up this issue. The most common reaction is that we should let Puerto Ricans decide the issue for themselves. The problem with that approach is that there are two parties in that relationship: Congress, due to its constitutional plenary power expressly vested in it by the territorial clause of article IV, section 3, clause 2, on the one hand and the people of Puerto Rico who have U.S. citizenship but are not yet fully self-governing on the other. When Congress failed to approve legislation to provide a status resolution process in 1991, the Puerto Ricans conducted a status vote, and the commonwealth option was defined on the ballot in the terms most favorable to its approval, to the point that it promised a lot more than Congress could ever approve. Even with the ballot definition that would significantly enhance the current status, the existing commonwealth relationship received less than a majority of the vote. So there is a serious issue of the legitimacy of the current less-than- equal or less-than-full self-governing status, especially given the U.S. assertion to the United Nations in 1953 that Puerto Rico was on a path toward decolonization. That is why the legislature of Puerto Rico passed Concurrent Resolution 2, on January 23, 1997, requesting Congress to sponsor a vote based on definitions it would be willing to consider, if approved by voters. With timely approval of this legislation, 1997 will be the year Congress provides the framework for the resolution of the Puerto Rican status question, through a three-phase decisionmaking process that will culminate during the second decade of the next century. It will be a process with respect to the right of residents of Puerto Rico to become fully self-governing, based on local self-determination, and, at the same time, recognizes that the United States also has a right of self-determination in its relationship to Puerto Rico. Consequently, resolution of the status of Puerto Rico should take place in accordance with the terms of a transition plan that is determined by Congress to be in the national interest. Acceptance of such a congressionally approved transition plan by the qualified voters of Puerto Rico in a free and informed act of self-determination will be required before the process leading to change of the present status will commence. The bill that I am introducing today, joined in by nine other colleagues, and my colleague from Florida, creates an evenhanded process that can lead to either separate sovereignty or statehood, depending on whether Congress and the residents of Puerto Rico approve the terms of the implementation of either of the two options of full self-government. Preservation of the current status also will be an option on the plebiscite ballot. However, the existing unincorporated territory status, including the commonwealth structure of local government, is not a constitutionally guaranteed form of self- government. Thus, until full self-government is achieved for Puerto Rico, there will be a need for periodic self-determination procedures as provided in this legislation. Whichever new status proves acceptable to Congress and the people of Puerto Rico, final implementation of the new status could be subject to approval by Congress and the people of Puerto Rico, at such time in the first or second decade of the next century as a transition process is completed. This explanation of the bill should dispel any concern in this body or the House that empowerment of the people of Puerto Rico to exercise the right of self-determination will impair the ability of Congress to work its will regarding the status of Puerto Rico. Mr. President, in 1956, 4 years after Congress and the people of Puerto Rico approved the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the constitutional nature and status of unincorporated territories such as Puerto Rico. In its opinion in the case of Reid v. Covert (354 U.S. 1), the Supreme Court confirmed that the territorial clause of the U.S. Constitution--article IV, section 3, clause 2--confers on Congress the power, in the court's words, ``. . . to provide rules and regulations to govern temporarily territories with wholly dissimilar traditions and institutions . . .'' While the Reid case was not a territorial status decision, it is significant that the Supreme Court's opinion in this case recognizes the temporary nature of the unincorporated territory status defined by the high court in an earlier line of status decisions known as the Insular Cases. For even though Puerto Ricans have had statutory U.S. citizenship since 1917, and local constitutional self-government similar to that of the States since 1952, it has become quite clear that U.S. citizens residing in an unincorporated territory cannot become fully self-governing in the Federal constitutional system on the basis of equality with their fellow citizens residing in the States of the Union. Specifically, unincorporated territorial status with the commonwealth structure for local self-government cannot be converted into a permanent form of union with constitutionally guaranteed U.S. citizenship, or equal legal and political rights with citizens in the States including voting rights in national elections and representation in Congress. At the same time, Congress cannot abdicate, divest or dispose of its constitutional authority and responsibility under the territorial clause or be bound by a statutory conferral of special rights intended to make the citizens of a territory whole for the lack of equal rights under the Federal constitution. The concept of an unalterable bilateral pact between Congress and the territories is politically implausible and constitutionally impermissible. A mutual consent based relationship would amount to a local veto power over acts of Congress and would give the territories rights and powers superior to those of the States. Indeed, I am not certain what the results would be if the States were given the option of trading in representation in Congress and the vote in Presidential elections for the power to veto Federal law, but it is a prospect inconsistent with American federalism. Thus, altering our constitutional system to attempt to accommodate the unincorporated territories in this way would be a disproportionate, inequitable, and politically perverse remedy for the problems the territories are experiencing due to the lack of voting in Federal elections or representation in Congress. Moreover, the concept of enhancing a less-than-equal status so that the disenfranchisement of U.S. citizens in the Federal political proces becomes permanent would arrest the process of self-determination and decolonization that began when the local constitution was established by Congress and the voters in the territory in 1952. It would reverse the progress that has been made toward full self- government to attempt to transform a temporary territorial status into a permanent one, although that is precisely what has been attempted by some in Puerto Rico for the last 40 years. Some in Congress have facilitated and promoted the fatally flawed notion that Puerto Rico could become a nation within a nation--if only at the level of partisan politics while being careful never to formally accept or commit that it could be constitutionally sustained. In reality, Puerto Rico is capable of becoming a State or a separate nation, or of remaining under the territorial clause if that is what the people and Congress prefer. But a decision to retain territorial status must be based on acceptance that this is a temporary status under the territorial clause, which can lead to full self- government outside the territorial clause only when Congress and the voters determine to pursue a recognized form of separate nationhood or full incorporation into the Federal political process leading to statehood. Thus, the question becomes one of how long can a less-than-equal and non-self-governing status continue now that Puerto Rico has constitutional self-government at the local level and has established institutions and traditions which are based upon, modeled after, and highly compatible with those of the United States? How long is temporary when we consider that Puerto Rico has been within U.S. sovereignty and the U.S. customs territory for a century? The proposals in the past that the self-determination process be self-executing may have had the appearance of empowering the people to determine their destiny. However, any attempt to bind Congress and the people to a choice the full effect and implications of which cannot be known at the time the initial choice is made is actually a form of disempowerment. For self-determination to be legitimate it must be informed, and a one-stage binding and self-executing process prevent both parties to the process--Congress and the people--from knowing what it is they are approving. Any process which does not enable Congress and the voters to define the options and approve the terms for implementation through a democratic process which involves a response by each party to the freely expressed wishes of the other as part of an orderly self- determination procedure is a formula for stagnation under the status quo. That is why the legislation defining a self-determination process for Puerto Rico must be based on the successful process Congress prescribed in 1950 through which the current constitution was approved by Congress and the voters in 1952. That process empowered the people and Congress to approve the process itself, then approve the new relationship defined through the process. As explained below, this is the most democratic procedure possible given the complicated dilemma faced by the United States and Puerto Rico. For only when the people express their preference between status options defined in a manner acceptable to Congress can the United States inform the people of the terms under which the preferred option could be accepted by Congress. This would empower the people to then engage in an informed act of self-determination, and it would empower Congress to define the national interest throughout the process. In the 104th Congress, S. 2019, was a response to Concurrent Resolution 62, adopted by the Legislature of Puerto Rico on December 14, 1994, and directed to the U.S. Congress, requesting a response to the results of a 1993 plebiscite conducted in Puerto Rico under local law. See, Congressional Record S9555-S9559, August 2, 1996. Like a similar locally managed vote in 1967, the 1993 vote did not resolve the question of Puerto Rico's future status, in large part because of pervasive confusion and misinformation about the legal nature of Puerto Rico's current status. The problem of chronic nonproductive debate in Puerto Rico and in Congress with respect to definition of the current status of Puerto Rico, as well as the options for change, is examined carefully in House Report 104-713, part 1, July 26, 1996, pp. 8-23, 29-36. In addition to responding to Resolution 62 by introducing legislation addressing the subject matter of that request by the elected representatives of the residents of Puerto Rico, S. 2019 was intended to complement and support the efforts of a bipartisan group of knowledgeable Members in the House to address the troubling issues raised in House Report 104- 713, part 1. S. 2019 was a companion measure to H.R. 3024, the United States- Puerto Rico Political Status Act, which was the subject of House Report 104-713, part 1. Although H.R. 3024 was scheduled for a vote by the House in the last days of the 104th Congress, and overwhelming approval was expected, a vote was delayed due to ancillary issues. However, important amendments to H.R. 3024 were agreed upon by participants in the House deliberations, and some of these should be incorporated in any measure to be considered in the 105th Congress. For example, because the debate in the 104th Congress and in the 1996 elections in Puerto Rico clarified certain fundamental issues regarding definition of status options, it may now be appropriate to include a three-way array of ballot options in any future status referendum. Thus, commonwealth, independence, and statehood should appear side-by- side on the ballot the next time there is a status vote in Puerto Rico. In the 104th Congress I concurred in the bipartisan position that developed in the House deliberations in support of a two-part ballot, separating the question of preserving the current unincorporated territory status from the two options for change to a permanent form of full self-government--separate sovereignty or statehood. However, the agreed upon House bill amendments and this new Senate bill make it clear that separate nationality or statehood remain the two paths to full self-government, and that commonwealth is a territorial clause status. I believe this approach will result in a free and informed act of self-determination by the residents based on accurate definitions. This will simplify the structure of the ballot, and make it all the more imperative that the definitions of status options also remain as simple and straightforward as possible. All the options presented on the ballot in a future status referendum must be based on the objective elements of each status option under applicable provisions of the U.S. Constitution and international law as recognized by the United States. In this connection, it must be noted that in the last four decades every attempt by Congress and territorial leaders to define the status options and establish a procedure to resolve the status question has failed. The last process which produced a tangible result and advanced Puerto Rico's progress toward self-government was that which Congress established in 1950 to allow the residents of Puerto Rico to organize local constitutional government. Thus, instead of trying to revisit battles of the past over any of the bills considered by Congress in 1990 and 1991, a better model for taking the next step in the self-determination process for Puerto Rico is the one employed by Congress to authorize and establish the current commonwealth structure for local self-government based on consent of the voters. The process established under Federal law in 1950 was based on a three-stage process through which the proposed new form of self- government was defined, approved and implemented with consent of both the United States and the residents of the territory at each stage. In the successful 1950 process, Congress set forth in U.S. Public Law 600 an essentially three-phase procedure as follows: Congress acted first, defining a framework under Federal law for instituting constitutional self-government over local affairs. An initial referendum was conducted in which the voters approved the terms for instituting constitutional self-government as defined by Congress. A second referendum was conducted on the proposed constitution and the President of the United States was required under Public Law 600 to transmit the draft constitution approved in that second referendum to Congress with his findings as to its conformity with the criteria defined by Congress. Congress approved final implementation of the new local constitution with amendments which were accepted by the locally elected constitutional convention and implemented on that basis by proclamation of the Governor. We should adopt a similar procedure for taking the next step to complete the process leading to full self-government which began with enactment of Public Law 600 in 1950. Such a three-stage process would be one through which: First, Congress defines the procedures and options it will accept as a basis for resolving the status question. In an initial referendum the voters then approve a status option they prefer. Second, the President transmits a proposal with recommended terms for implementing the choice of the voters consistent with the criteria defined by Congress, and upon approval by Congress a second referendum is held to determine if the voters accept the terms upon which Congress would be willing to implement the new status. Third, both Congress and the voters must act affirmatively to approve final implementation once the terms of the transition plan have been fulfilled. This would track the successful model of Public Law 600, except that it improves upon it by requiring Congress and the voters to approve final implementation. This is more democratic than the procedure followed in 1952, in which Congress amended the Constitution and the revisions were accepted by the constitutional convention and put into effect by proclamation of the Governor. To ensure that there is no ambiguity about the new relationship as there was after the current local constitution was implemented in 1952, the Congress and the voters themselves, again, should have the last word on implementation. This prevents the local political parties from attempting to exploit ambiguity and convert it into a political platform, as has been the case with the current commonwealth structure for local self-government. In this regard, I note that there are those who continue to suggest that definitions of status options for a political status referendum should be based upon the formulations adopted by the political parties in Puerto Rico. This approach is urged in the name of consensus building. However, the history of attempts to address this problem-- including the approval of H.R. 4765 by the House in 1990--makes it clear that the illusion of consensus has been achieved on status definitions in the past only by sacrificing the constitutional, legal, and political integrity of the process. Recognizing the principle of consent by the qualified voters through an act of self-determination to retain the current status or seek change under definitions acceptable to Congress is very different from the idea that legislation to make self-determination possible cannot be enacted unless there is consent by local political parties to both the form and content of what is proposed. The qualified voters of Puerto Rico, not the local political parties, are Puerto Rico for purposes of the self-determination process. No sleight-of-hand gimmicks or disclaimers disguised as good-faith commitments will substitute for intellectually honest status definitions. We must approve legislation that makes it clear that Congress will propose a transition plan on terms it deems to be in the best interests of the United States, and when it does the people qualified to vote in Puerto Rico will have to decide if the terms prescribed by Congress are acceptable. If the terms for a change of status defined by Congress are not acceptable to the voters, then the right of self-determination can be exercised thereafter in an informed manner based on that outcome. There should be no stated or implied commitment to a moral obligation to consider any status definition--no matter who might propose it--which is deemed unconstitutional or unacceptable to Congress. That would be misleading and dishonest, and no clever caveat could redeem such a breach of the institutional integrity and constitutional duty of the Congress. In 1997, Congress must take responsibility for informing the people of Puerto Rico of what the real options are based on congressional definition of the status formulations which Congress determines to be consistent with the national interest and the right of self- determination of both the United States and the people of Puerto Rico. This represents an opportunity and challenge as we seek to define our Nation in the next century, and there is an obligation for all concerned to ensure that the voters in Puerto Rico are given an opportunity for a free and informed act of self-determination. If we accomplish that, then whatever the outcome may be will vindicate 100 years of democratization and development for Puerto Rico through its evolving relationship with the United States and the self- determination of its people.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am proud to join with my colleague from Florida today in the introduction of the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act. In the 104th Congress, I joined as a cosponsor of S. 2019, with a bipartisan effort in the Senate to deal with this issue. I know that some of my colleagues will question the need for Congress to take up this issue. The most common reaction is that we should let Puerto Ricans decide the issue for themselves. The problem with that approach is that there are two parties in that relationship: Congress, due to its constitutional plenary power expressly vested in it by the territorial clause of article IV, section 3, clause 2, on the one hand and the people of Puerto Rico who have U.S. citizenship but are not yet fully self-governing on the other. When Congress failed to approve legislation to provide a status resolution process in 1991, the Puerto Ricans conducted a status vote, and the commonwealth option was defined on the ballot in the terms most favorable to its approval, to the point that it promised a lot more than Congress could ever approve. Even with the ballot definition that would significantly enhance the current status, the existing commonwealth relationship received less than a majority of the vote. So there is a serious issue of the legitimacy of the current less-than- equal or less-than-full self-governing status, especially given the U.S. assertion to the United Nations in 1953 that Puerto Rico was on a path toward decolonization. That is why the legislature of Puerto Rico passed Concurrent Resolution 2, on January 23, 1997, requesting Congress to sponsor a vote based on definitions it would be willing to consider, if approved by voters. With timely approval of this legislation, 1997 will be the year Congress provides the framework for the resolution of the Puerto Rican status question, through a three-phase decisionmaking process that will culminate during the second decade of the next century. It will be a process with respect to the right of residents of Puerto Rico to become fully self-governing, based on local self-determination, and, at the same time, recognizes that the United States also has a right of self-determination in its relationship to Puerto Rico. Consequently, resolution of the status of Puerto Rico should take place in accordance with the terms of a transition plan that is determined by Congress to be in the national interest. Acceptance of such a congressionally approved transition plan by the qualified voters of Puerto Rico in a free and informed act of self-determination will be required before the process leading to change of the present status will commence. The bill that I am introducing today, joined in by nine other colleagues, and my colleague from Florida, creates an evenhanded process that can lead to either separate sovereignty or statehood, depending on whether Congress and the residents of Puerto Rico approve the terms of the implementation of either of the two options of full self-government. Preservation of the current status also will be an option on the plebiscite ballot. However, the existing unincorporated territory status, including the commonwealth structure of local government, is not a constitutionally guaranteed form of self- government. Thus, until full self-government is achieved for Puerto Rico, there will be a need for periodic self-determination procedures as provided in this legislation. Whichever new status proves acceptable to Congress and the people of Puerto Rico, final implementation of the new status could be subject to approval by Congress and the people of Puerto Rico, at such time in the first or second decade of the next century as a transition process is completed. This explanation of the bill should dispel any concern in this body or the House that empowerment of the people of Puerto Rico to exercise the right of self-determination will impair the ability of Congress to work its will regarding the status of Puerto Rico. Mr. President, in 1956, 4 years after Congress and the people of Puerto Rico approved the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the constitutional nature and status of unincorporated territories such as Puerto Rico. In its opinion in the case of Reid v. Covert (354 U.S. 1), the Supreme Court confirmed that the territorial clause of the U.S. Constitution--article IV, section 3, clause 2--confers on Congress the power, in the court's words, ``. . . to provide rules and regulations to govern temporarily territories with wholly dissimilar traditions and institutions . . .'' While the Reid case was not a territorial status decision, it is significant that the Supreme Court's opinion in this case recognizes the temporary nature of the unincorporated territory status defined by the high court in an earlier line of status decisions known as the Insular Cases. For even though Puerto Ricans have had statutory U.S. citizenship since 1917, and local constitutional self-government similar to that of the States since 1952, it has become quite clear that U.S. citizens residing in an unincorporated territory cannot become fully self-governing in the Federal constitutional system on the basis of equality with their fellow citizens residing in the States of the Union. Specifically, unincorporated territorial status with the commonwealth structure for local self-government cannot be converted into a permanent form of union with constitutionally guaranteed U.S. citizenship, or equal legal and political rights with citizens in the States including voting rights in national elections and representation in Congress. At the same time, Congress cannot abdicate, divest or dispose of its constitutional authority and responsibility under the territorial clause or be bound by a statutory conferral of special rights intended to make the citizens of a territory whole for the lack of equal rights under the Federal constitution. The concept of an unalterable bilateral pact between Congress and the territories is politically implausible and constitutionally impermissible. A mutual consent based relationship would amount to a local veto power over acts of Congress and would give the territories rights and powers superior to those of the States. Indeed, I am not certain what the results would be if the States were given the option of trading in representation in Congress and the vote in Presidential elections for the power to veto Federal law, but it is a prospect inconsistent with American federalism. Thus, altering our constitutional system to attempt to accommodate the unincorporated territories in this way would be a disproportionate, inequitable, and politically perverse remedy for the problems the territories are experiencing due to the lack of voting in Federal elections or representation in Congress. Moreover, the concept of enhancing a less-than-equal status so that the disenfranchisement of U.S. citizens in the Federal political proces becomes permanent would arrest the process of self-determination and decolonization that began when the local constitution was established by Congress and the voters in the territory in 1952. It would reverse the progress that has been made toward full self- government to attempt to transform a temporary territorial status into a permanent one, although that is precisely what has been attempted by some in Puerto Rico for the last 40 years. Some in Congress have facilitated and promoted the fatally flawed notion that Puerto Rico could become a nation within a nation--if only at the level of partisan politics while being careful never to formally accept or commit that it could be constitutionally sustained. In reality, Puerto Rico is capable of becoming a State or a separate nation, or of remaining under the territorial clause if that is what the people and Congress prefer. But a decision to retain territorial status must be based on acceptance that this is a temporary status under the territorial clause, which can lead to full self- government outside the territorial clause only when Congress and the voters determine to pursue a recognized form of separate nationhood or full incorporation into the Federal political process leading to statehood. Thus, the question becomes one of how long can a less-than-equal and non-self-governing status continue now that Puerto Rico has constitutional self-government at the local level and has established institutions and traditions which are based upon, modeled after, and highly compatible with those of the United States? How long is temporary when we consider that Puerto Rico has been within U.S. sovereignty and the U.S. customs territory for a century? The proposals in the past that the self-determination process be self-executing may have had the appearance of empowering the people to determine their destiny. However, any attempt to bind Congress and the people to a choice the full effect and implications of which cannot be known at the time the initial choice is made is actually a form of disempowerment. For self-determination to be legitimate it must be informed, and a one-stage binding and self-executing process prevent both parties to the process--Congress and the people--from knowing what it is they are approving. Any process which does not enable Congress and the voters to define the options and approve the terms for implementation through a democratic process which involves a response by each party to the freely expressed wishes of the other as part of an orderly self- determination procedure is a formula for stagnation under the status quo. That is why the legislation defining a self-determination process for Puerto Rico must be based on the successful process Congress prescribed in 1950 through which the current constitution was approved by Congress and the voters in 1952. That process empowered the people and Congress to approve the process itself, then approve the new relationship defined through the process. As explained below, this is the most democratic procedure possible given the complicated dilemma faced by the United States and Puerto Rico. For only when the people express their preference between status options defined in a manner acceptable to Congress can the United States inform the people of the terms under which the preferred option could be accepted by Congress. This would empower the people to then engage in an informed act of self-determination, and it would empower Congress to define the national interest throughout the process. In the 104th Congress, S. 2019, was a response to Concurrent Resolution 62, adopted by the Legislature of Puerto Rico on December 14, 1994, and directed to the U.S. Congress, requesting a response to the results of a 1993 plebiscite conducted in Puerto Rico under local law. See, Congressional Record S9555-S9559, August 2, 1996. Like a similar locally managed vote in 1967, the 1993 vote did not resolve the question of Puerto Rico's future status, in large part because of pervasive confusion and misinformation about the legal nature of Puerto Rico's current status. The problem of chronic nonproductive debate in Puerto Rico and in Congress with respect to definition of the current status of Puerto Rico, as well as the options for change, is examined carefully in House Report 104-713, part 1, July 26, 1996, pp. 8-23, 29-36. In addition to responding to Resolution 62 by introducing legislation addressing the subject matter of that request by the elected representatives of the residents of Puerto Rico, S. 2019 was intended to complement and support the efforts of a bipartisan group of knowledgeable Members in the House to address the troubling issues raised in House Report 104- 713, part 1. S. 2019 was a companion measure to H.R. 3024, the United States- Puerto Rico Political Status Act, which was the subject of House Report 104-713, part 1. Although H.R. 3024 was scheduled for a vote by the House in the last days of the 104th Congress, and overwhelming approval was expected, a vote was delayed due to ancillary issues. However, important amendments to H.R. 3024 were agreed upon by participants in the House deliberations, and some of these should be incorporated in any measure to be considered in the 105th Congress. For example, because the debate in the 104th Congress and in the 1996 elections in Puerto Rico clarified certain fundamental issues regarding definition of status options, it may now be appropriate to include a three-way array of ballot options in any future status referendum. Thus, commonwealth, independence, and statehood should appear side-by- side on the ballot the next time there is a status vote in Puerto Rico. In the 104th Congress I concurred in the bipartisan position that developed in the House deliberations in support of a two-part ballot, separating the question of preserving the current unincorporated territory status from the two options for change to a permanent form of full self-government--separate sovereignty or statehood. However, the agreed upon House bill amendments and this new Senate bill make it clear that separate nationality or statehood remain the two paths to full self-government, and that commonwealth is a territorial clause status. I believe this approach will result in a free and informed act of self-determination by the residents based on accurate definitions. This will simplify the structure of the ballot, and make it all the more imperative that the definitions of status options also remain as simple and straightforward as possible. All the options presented on the ballot in a future status referendum must be based on the objective elements of each status option under applicable provisions of the U.S. Constitution and international law as recognized by the United States. In this connection, it must be noted that in the last four decades every attempt by Congress and territorial leaders to define the status options and establish a procedure to resolve the status question has failed. The last process which produced a tangible result and advanced Puerto Rico's progress toward self-government was that which Congress established in 1950 to allow the residents of Puerto Rico to organize local constitutional government. Thus, instead of trying to revisit battles of the past over any of the bills considered by Congress in 1990 and 1991, a better model for taking the next step in the self-determination process for Puerto Rico is the one employed by Congress to authorize and establish the current commonwealth structure for local self-government based on consent of the voters. The process established under Federal law in 1950 was based on a three-stage process through which the proposed new form of self- government was defined, approved and implemented with consent of both the United States and the residents of the territory at each stage. In the successful 1950 process, Congress set forth in U.S. Public Law 600 an essentially three-phase procedure as follows: Congress acted first, defining a framework under Federal law for instituting constitutional self-government over local affairs. An initial referendum was conducted in which the voters approved the terms for instituting constitutional self-government as defined by Congress. A second referendum was conducted on the proposed constitution and the President of the United States was required under Public Law 600 to transmit the draft constitution approved in that second referendum to Congress with his findings as to its conformity with the criteria defined by Congress. Congress approved final implementation of the new local constitution with amendments which were accepted by the locally elected constitutional convention and implemented on that basis by proclamation of the Governor. We should adopt a similar procedure for taking the next step to complete the process leading to full self-government which began with enactment of Public Law 600 in 1950. Such a three-stage process would be one through which: First, Congress defines the procedures and options it will accept as a basis for resolving the status question. In an initial referendum the voters then approve a status option they prefer. Second, the President transmits a proposal with recommended terms for implementing the choice of the voters consistent with the criteria defined by Congress, and upon approval by Congress a second referendum is held to determine if the voters accept the terms upon which Congress would be willing to implement the new status. Third, both Congress and the voters must act affirmatively to approve final implementation once the terms of the transition plan have been fulfilled. This would track the successful model of Public Law 600, except that it improves upon it by requiring Congress and the voters to approve final implementation. This is more democratic than the procedure followed in 1952, in which Congress amended the Constitution and the revisions were accepted by the constitutional convention and put into effect by proclamation of the Governor. To ensure that there is no ambiguity about the new relationship as there was after the current local constitution was implemented in 1952, the Congress and the voters themselves, again, should have the last word on implementation. This prevents the local political parties from attempting to exploit ambiguity and convert it into a political platform, as has been the case with the current commonwealth structure for local self-government. In this regard, I note that there are those who continue to suggest that definitions of status options for a political status referendum should be based upon the formulations adopted by the political parties in Puerto Rico. This approach is urged in the name of consensus building. However, the history of attempts to address this problem-- including the approval of H.R. 4765 by the House in 1990--makes it clear that the illusion of consensus has been achieved on status definitions in the past only by sacrificing the constitutional, legal, and political integrity of the process. Recognizing the principle of consent by the qualified voters through an act of self-determination to retain the current status or seek change under definitions acceptable to Congress is very different from the idea that legislation to make self-determination possible cannot be enacted unless there is consent by local political parties to both the form and content of what is proposed. The qualified voters of Puerto Rico, not the local political parties, are Puerto Rico for purposes of the self-determination process. No sleight-of-hand gimmicks or disclaimers disguised as good-faith commitments will substitute for intellectually honest status definitions. We must approve legislation that makes it clear that Congress will propose a transition plan on terms it deems to be in the best interests of the United States, and when it does the people qualified to vote in Puerto Rico will have to decide if the terms prescribed by Congress are acceptable. If the terms for a change of status defined by Congress are not acceptable to the voters, then the right of self-determination can be exercised thereafter in an informed manner based on that outcome. There should be no stated or implied commitment to a moral obligation to consider any status definition--no matter who might propose it--which is deemed unconstitutional or unacceptable to Congress. That would be misleading and dishonest, and no clever caveat could redeem such a breach of the institutional integrity and constitutional duty of the Congress. In 1997, Congress must take responsibility for informing the people of Puerto Rico of what the real options are based on congressional definition of the status formulations which Congress determines to be consistent with the national interest and the right of self- determination of both the United States and the people of Puerto Rico. This represents an opportunity and challenge as we seek to define our Nation in the next century, and there is an obligation for all concerned to ensure that the voters in Puerto Rico are given an opportunity for a free and informed act of self-determination. If we accomplish that, then whatever the outcome may be will vindicate 100 years of democratization and development for Puerto Rico through its evolving relationship with the United States and the self- determination of its people.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me thank the Senator from Indiana for bringing together for us what is a perplexing issue. I had watched from afar, because I am not a Member of the Intelligence Committee, the process of the interviewing of the nominee, Tony Lake. While I know there was considerable controversy and an unwillingness on the part of this administration to send forth the full FBI file, that was really the only argument I ever heard. Finally some of that file came, but certainly not all of it did, nor was there ever full disclosure. Yet on the evening news last night I watched a very indignant President talking about the corruption of the procedure. And nowhere during all of this did I understand that there was any corruption, only a request for knowledge, for information to decide whether the No. 1 intelligence officer of this country was eligible to serve in that position. The Senator from Indiana has told us the rest of the story. And the rest of the story is that Tony Lake is a refugee of this administration's mispractices, if not illegal acts. He is not a refugee of this Congress' failure to act, because we were doing what is our constitutional responsibility. I, too, today voted for an independent counsel. Two weeks ago I called for an independent counsel, as I think most of us were growing to believe that anything we did here would be either tainted by the opposition or tainted by the media as somehow a partisan act. What the Intelligence Committee of the Senate did was not partisan. It was constitutional. It was responsible. What the President did in his ``mea culpa, mea culpa'' last night was the first to the altar of the sinners to say ``not I'' when in fact the stories are now pouring out that somehow the process was corrupted and that Tony Lake, as an instrument of that process, grew corrupt along with it. Just because the great Soviet empire and communism as a sweeping rave of ``isms'' around the world seems to be on the rapid decline, is foreign policy and the integrity of foreign policy in our country any less important? I would suggest that it is not. When foreign countries wish to influence the most economically powerful country in the world for purposes of commerce or access to its decisionmaking, that in itself is of concern. And it has to be this Congress that understands that and this President that understands that and in no way allows foreign policy, decisionmaking, or any part of that process to be biased by undue influence. And yet day after day, now almost hourly, the stories pile up. Tony Lake is now part of that story. Janet Reno must step aside from what appears to be at this moment a gross conflict of interest and do what is her statutory responsibility, and that is to appoint an independent counsel. Then let the chips fall where they may. And I do not know where they will fall. And I do not think the Senator from Indiana knows. We are talking about allegations, allegations that were first launched, not by a politician, but by the media itself. It was an article in the Los Angeles Times back in the latter days of the last campaign that argued that somehow there appeared to be an issue of corruption or an issue of compromise or an issue of illegality as it relates to how this administration, most importantly, this President and his Presidential campaign had raised money. Now Janet Reno, do your job. Call the independent counsel. Get on with the business of ferreting out whether there were illegal acts involved in the corruption of or the compromise of this President and this President's foreign policymaking. And, thank goodness, through all of the winnowing process Tony Lake is now out of the picture and we can get on with the business of reviewing nominees who can meet the test of integrity and legitimacy in conducting what is still a very important part of this country's affairs, and that is our intelligence-gathering network, the eyes and ears of a government who is responsible for conducting the foreign policy of a nation that still remains critical to the security of our country and our financial and economic well-being. I thank my colleague from Indiana for so clearly pointing these issues out. I yield back my time.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I have addressed the Senate already on the need for an independent counsel to investigate the growing scandal concerning fundraising. Along those same lines, I recommend to all my colleagues a thoughtful editorial from the Washington Post entitled ``The Fund-Raising Fiasco: The Democrats' Problem . . .''. Mr. President, I ask that this article be printed in the Record. The article follows: The Fund-Raising Fiasco: The Democrats' Problem . . . The Democrats' new chairman, Roy Romer of Colorado, did right on Friday to acknowledge error and pledge a new, reformed style of fund-raising behavior on behalf of his party. But it seemed to us that something much more active, intense and deliberate had gotten the Clinton White House into its present troubles than the alleged mere failure of ``screening'' that the president likes to talk about (and lay off on the Democratic National Committee). The people whose money has had to be returned (to the tune of $3 million, as of today) did not, from all the evidence, simply slip through the net in some random, inexplicable way. They were not a byproduct of any simple breakdown of screening procedures. The more important of them, in the first place (Mr. Trie, Mr. Huang), who brought others into the fold, have connections dating from Arkansas days with Mr. Clinton. The Clinton White House brought them into national Democratic Party politics, not the other way around. Again, the nature of many of the favor- and respectability- seeking money givers suggests that the word must have gotten around that you could gain marketable, perhaps personally extremely useful photo-op access to the president for a sufficient number of bucks. Is there some other way to account for the fact that, even at a time when the administration had barricaded off a hunk of Pennsylvania Avenue to protect the first family from criminal assault, it was ushering into the president's presence a stream of folks that sometimes seemed to resemble an international ``Ten Most Wanted'' list? Let us remind you of a few of the more memorable visitors. Russ Barakat, the south Florida Democratic Party official. Five days after his coffee session at the White House in April 1995, Mr. Barakat was indicted on criminal charges and ultimately convicted for tax evasion. A Florida newspaper was full of stories about Mr. Barakat's problems with the law before the executive mansion get-together, but he was asked in for coffee anyway. Wang Jun, the Chinese businessman and head of a military- owned arms company. While part of the U.S. government was out investigating Wang Jun for allegedly smuggling arms into this country, he was with Mr. Clinton at a White House coffee, courtesy of Mr. Trie. Eric Wynn, whose $100,000 bail was revoked this past week because he failed to tell authorities about his five arrests since being sentenced for theft and tax offenses a while back. He was at the White House for coffee two days after a company partially controlled by him gave $25,000 to the Democratic National Committee. At the time Mr. Wynn hooked up with the president, he bore the distinction of having been a twice-convicted felon. But that was only the beginning. Mr. Wynn-who was seeking a presidential pardon for himself--turned up last year at four other DNC fund-raisers involving the president including one in which he, his attorney (a close presidential friend from Arkansas) and Mr. Clinton reportedly had a brief private chat. Whatever about? The president, said White House press secretary Michael McCurry, ``recalls no substantive private meeting with Mr. Wynn and is certain he never entertained any discussion of Mr. Wynn's legal situation.'' Jorge Cabrera of Miami, DNC donor who was jailed on drug charges in the 1980s. Mr. Cabrera turned up at a White House Christmas party, only to get caught a short time later with more than 5,000 pounds of cocaine, for which he is now serving 19 years in jail. Chong Lo. Convicted of tax evasion in the 1980s under the name of Esther Chu, Chong Lo was another visitor for coffee with Mr. Clinton. She has since been arrested again on 14 charges of falsifying mortgage applications--to which she has pled not guilty. Roger Tamraz. While Interpol was looking for Mr. Tamraz all over the world under a 1989 international arrest warrant on conspiracy and embezzlement charges, the fugitive from Lebannon was here in Washington at the White House sipping coffee with the president. Here in another indicator, in our view, that something beyond a mere screening mishap befell the White House in these fund-raising transactions. It is the sheer number of times that some of the fund-raisers visited the White House. We daresay there are department bigwigs in the administration who haven't been there nearly as often. So what was actually going on during these recurrent White House sessions? At this stage, little is known about the purposes of their visits, who the visitors saw each time, what they did when they got there, or who authorized their entry to the White House. More should be known. Ponder just a few of the numbers we find so startling: Mr. Huang visited the White House 78 times in 15 months (most of the money he raised in 1996 was returned, having been deemed inappropriate or from unlawful foreign sources); Thai businesswoman and major Democratic party donor Pauline Kanchanalak has been at the White House at least 26 times since the president took office; businessman and contributor Johnny Chung reportedly visited the White House at least 49 times. This wasn't a question of screening or failing to screen. These were people apparently well known to their White House hosts, people who had business to do at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and went right in. Then there are the sleepovers. The White House has disclosed that 900-plus individuals have spent a night at the White House since the Clintons moved in. The acknowledgment of this fact and the publication of the list rather sharply change the impression the White House earlier gave a more casual, friends and family kind of hospitality. More than a third of the sleepovers were financial benefactors of Mr. Clinton or the DNC. ``They were my friends and I was proud to have them here,'' the president explained, but as the White House deputy communications director delicately corrected him, some weren't friends yet'' but ``were people the president and the first lady wanted to spend more time with.'' As Charles Krauthammer observed on the opposite page the other day, the word for people who aren't friends yet is usually ``strangers.'' Much more needs to be known about these sojourns-- especially the number of visits and their dates in relation to events that preceded and followed. This is especially relevant where the visitors weren't strangers at all, as a matter of fact, but persons involved in the other, related legal matters concerning the Clinton administration. Our conclusion about all this is threefold. It is that first, a great deal more needs to be disclosed about all these transactions; second, it will be disclosed, as it has been to date, reluctantly and in response to various events and pressures; and third, (see below) the odds are not great for a good and fairminded congressional inquiry into the subject. For the moment that leaves Janet Reno in charge.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, recently, the citizens of Idaho, through their elected representatives in the State legislature, called upon the Members of the U.S. Congress to pass a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. This is further proof that Idahoans are acutely aware of the devastating impact 28 deficits in a row and 36 unbalanced budgets in 37 years have had on our country. If asked, the overwhelming majority of Idahoans would say it is not right to saddle every child born today with nearly $200,000 in additional taxes just to pay interest on the national debt. Most Idahoans would say it is not right to rob future generations of the opportunity to participate in a vibrant, growing economy. They understand the implications of the Congressional Budget Office's words, that without changes in current tax and spend policies, the Federal ``debt would exceed levels the economy could reasonably support.'' Most Idahoans can see the debt is the threat to Social Security and that no program, no matter how important, can survive the squeeze of increasing interest payments on the debt--$344 billion in fiscal year 1996. Idahoans have known for years that balancing the budget would have an immediate positive impact on American families. In 1982 I was encouraged by Idahoans to vote for BBA. If the BBA would have passed then, the national income would be at least 5 percent higher today, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Idahoans understand passing the BBA would put more than $1,500 a year into the pockets of American families--per DRI-McGraw-Hill, and others. The citizens of Idaho are hard working, wise, and astute in their understanding of the need for the BBA. They know you don't need to be clairvoyant to see what the future holds if our current course of fiscal irresponsibility is maintained. Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent that a copy of Idaho Senate Joint Memorial No. 102 be printed in the Record at the end of my statement.