Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate now proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 386, S. 1418.

Mr. DOMENICI. I ask consent the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and any statement relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations on the Executive Calendar: Nos. 383 through 392 and all nominations on the Secretary's desk in the Air Force, Army and Navy. I further ask unanimous consent that the nominations be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, any statements relating to the nomination be printed in the Record, and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consider the following treaties on today's Executive Calendar: Nos 4 through 14. I further ask unanimous consent that the treaties be considered as having passed through their various parliamentary stages, up to and including the presentation of the resolutions of ratification; all committee provisos, reservations, understandings, and declarations be considered agreed to; any statements be printed in the Record; and the Senate take one vote on the resolutions of ratification to be considered as separate votes. Further, that when the resolutions of ratification are voted upon, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, the President be notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate return to legislative session.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask for a division vote on the resolutions of ratification.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am pleased today to be introducing the Bisti PRLA Dispute Resolution Act, which will resolve a conflict regarding coal mining leases in New Mexico. A coal company and the Navajo Nation have been deadlocked within the Department of Interior appeals process regarding preference right lease applications (PRLAs) in the Bisti region of northwestern New Mexico. When enacted, this legislation will resolve a complex set of issues arising from legal rights the Arch Coal Company acquired in federal lands, which are now situated among lands which constitute tribal property and the allotments of members of the Navajo Nation. Both the company and the Nation support this legislation to resolve the situation. There are many reasons the solution embodied in this bill achieves broad benefits to the interested parties and the public. It will allow the Navajo Nation to complete the land selections that were made in 1981 to promote tribal member resettlement following the partition of lands in Arizona. It also guarantees that Arch Coal, Inc. will be compensated for the economic value of its coal reserves. An independent panel will make recommendations to the Secretary of Interior regarding the fair market value of the coal reserves, gives the company bidding rights, protects a state's financial interest in its share of federal Mineral Leasing Act payments, and allows the Navajo Nation full fee ownership in their lands. The Secretary of Interior will issue a certificate of bidding rights to Arch Coal upon relinquishment of its interests in the PLRAs. The amount of that certificate will equal the fair market value of the coal reserves as defined by the Department of Interior's regulations. A panel consisting of representatives of the Department of Interior, Arch Coal, and the Governors of Wyoming and New Mexico will help determine fair market value. While the Interior Department is authorized to exchange PRLAs for bidding rights, the Department has not done so, largely because of the difficulty it perceives in determining the fair market value of the coal reserves. The panel method in this legislation will promote the objectivity of that process. Upon the relinquishment of the PRLAs and the issuance of a certificate of bidding rights, the Department of Interior will execute patents to the Navajo Nation of the selected lands encompassed by the PRLAs. This is a win-win situation for all parties involved; is endorsed by the affected parties, and is a fair resolution to this on- going problem. I hope for prompt action on this legislation early next year.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the conference agreement before the Senate today. There are few bills Congress has completed in my time here which will have a more profound impact on our economy than this legislation to modernize and harmonize the various segments of our financial services industry. I think this historic legislation will result in lower costs of financial services for American consumers, and enhance the competitiveness of United States companies in the global financial marketplace. At the outset, I want to congratulate Chairman Gramm and the members of the Senate Banking Committee for all of their hard work on this issue. As Chairman Gramm knows, it has been no easy task to get the banking, securities and insurance industries, as well as the Administration, the regulators and community groups to agree on what shape this law should take. It is a testament to Senator Gramm's tenacity that he was able finally to hammer out this agreement. As we move into the 21st century, the United States continues to maintain capital markets which are the envy of the world. Bank consolidations and rapid expansion of new global markets have meant phenomenal growth in our financial services sector in recent years. The wave of bank mergers in the late 1990's has led to a situation where the assets held by the five largest banks in the United States now total $2.1 trillion. Five years ago, the top five only had $753 billion in assets. In 1998, for the first time in many years, a U.S. bank is one of the top 10 largest in the world based on assets. From 1997 to 1998, U.S. banks in the top 100 in the world saw their assets grow by 23 percent, their capital base grow by 48 percent and their revenues increase by 36 percent. The United States has 8 of the top 10 securities firms in the world and 4 of the top 20 insurance companies. With all of this financial strength consolidated in the United States, some may wonder why we need this historic new law. With the advent of the European Monetary Union, the combined gross domestic product of the nations in the Union is already equal to that of the United States. When the U.K. joins the Union, the combined GDP will be 10 percent greater than the GDP of the United States. United States firms need to be more flexible, more efficient, and able to offer more products if they are to compete successfully in these new markets. Currently, European laws are much more flexible, allowing financial services firms across the Atlantic to be better integrated than United States firms. Our laws need to keep pace. This conference report will allow our various banking, insurance and securities firms to combine through financial holding companies so that they may be even stronger competitors in the increasingly international financial services marketplace. This enhanced efficiency is not only good for the United States' competitiveness in the international market, it is good for consumers. The Treasury Department estimates that every 1 percentage point decline in the cost of financial intermediation could save U.S. consumers $3.5 billion a year. This new law will allow consumers to enjoy cheaper access to capital and one-stop shopping at financial services superstores. Americans who want to borrow to buy a new car or a home, purchase insurance to protect that car or home, or invest in securities for the future, will for the first time under this new law be able to do all of that at one time, in one place and at a lower cost. I want to commend the chairman and conferees for the way in which they have resolved two major issues which concerned me when we debated this bill in the Senate. Those issues are whether the Federal Reserve or Treasury Department should be the primary regulator of the new financial holding companies, and what to do about abuses of the Community Reinvestment Act of CRA. First, I have great respect for Treasury Secretary Summers and his predecessor, Robert Rubin. They are two of the finest economic and financial minds in the world. But I simply believe that it is more appropriate for the Federal Reserve, a nonpolitical entity also headed by a pretty good economic and financial mind in Alan Greenspan, to serve as the primary regulator in this new age. Regulation of our financial system should not be subject to the ups and downs of the political process, as would be the case if a political appointee, in this case the Secretary of the Treasury, had control. I believe that this bill makes the proper policy decision by designating the Federal Reserve as the umbrella regulator of financial holding companies. The bill provides a mechanism for coordination between the Fed and the Treasury in approving new financial activities for financial holding company subsidiaries. The Treasury Department, through the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will maintain its functional regulatory authority over the banking activities of affiliates and subsidiaries of national banks. This is a good compromise and I salute the chairman for his work. Second, I commend the chairman for his diligence in attempting to address the abusers related to the CRA. This bill does not go as far as I know the chairman would like, but it is a good start. And for those concerned community groups out there who have not abused the CRA, let there be no confusion: when this law is signed by the President, there will still be a CRA and there will still be robust community lending across the United States. In fact, the law itself states that nothing in the conference agreement repeals any existing provision of the CRA. What the bill does is provide regulatory relief to small banks which demonstrate that they have achieved at least a satisfactory CRA rating in their most recent audit. This will reduce the burdens related to CRA exams for 82 percent of all banks. And for the larger institutions in cities like Albuquerque, the CRA will continue to apply in the same manner as it does today. That is an eminently reasonable approach. Finally, the bill allows a little sunlight to be shed on all CRA agreements between banks and community groups. Over the next ten years, banks have promised $350 billion in loans and payments to community groups under the CRA. This law will require full public disclosure of those agreements, and an annual accounting of how the money and other resources promised in the agreement were utilized. The public has a right to examine the costs and benefits associated with CRA agreements, and this will provide that public accountability. Mr. President, I want to commend all of those who have worked so hard to finally get Congress to the point where this bill can become law. I am happy to support this bill, and look forward to the President signing it into law.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want to commend a group of New Mexicans who are achieving some phenomenal results. In fact, they're currently batting .500 and more. If they were baseball players they would be acclaimed on every sports page. But instead of baseball, this group has discovered half of the comets that are currently visible through telescopes. One of their latest comet discoveries may be bright enough to see with binoculars next year. And it's probably safe to guess that the brightest of comets attracts an audience well in excess of those watching major league baseball. Instead of baseball bats, they are using a telescope at the north end of White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. This Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project is run by Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of technology. A second telescope at the site started operations in the last week--that may boost their discoveries still further. The project grew out of an Air Force study involving space surveillance. Now space surveillance isn't a new subject, but in this project they're using a new automated system with a highly sensitive electronic camera. It's a great tool for discovering objects that move in the heavens, like comets and asteroids. The performance of their system exceeds any competitor by at least ten times. Today, both the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and NASA provide the funding for this project. Their asteroid batting average even exceeds their comet batting average. Since the first telescope started operation in March 1998, the project has accounted for about 70 percent of all the near-Earth asteroids that have ever been located. That's especially impressive since astronomers have been searching for such objects for over 60 years. As they find these asteroids, they also project their future path through the heavens and explore any possibility for an impact with the Earth. In the course of their work, they've found four asteroids that might possibly approach Earth--but so far, careful evaluations of their probable future trajectories have shown that each of these objects should miss us. So, while the dinosaurs may have become extinct after an asteroid impact, so far our coast looks clear. The project team is headed by Dr. Grant Stokes, a 1977 graduate of Los Alamos High School and a New Mexico native. Dr. Eric Pearce directs the team at White Sands. This team has truly revolutionized the art of finding comets and asteroids. I want to commend Dr. Stokes and Dr. Pearce along with their supporters at the Air Force and NASA. This large group of New Mexicans deserves the title of the world's best comet and asteroid hunting team.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I will not repeat what has been stated, other than generally to say most of the social programs in this bill, from Meals on Wheels to student aid to everything else in between, even after the .97-percent cut, are substantially higher than last year and, in almost every instance, higher than what the President of the United States asked for in his budget. If doing that amounts to cutting a program, then, frankly, I don't understand what it means to increase a program and increase them as dramatically as we have in this bill. The best friend the National Institutes of Health has ever had is a Republican Congress. We are increasing National Institutes of Health because people such as Connie Mack and a few others have said double it in the next 5 years. In this bill, we had in NIH $2.3 billion more than the President; with the across-the-board cut, we are $2 billion in appropriations more than the President. Essentially, there has been a lot of talk about saving Social Security, and we have used some OMB scoring where we think it is appropriate. There are those who still come to the floor and act as if they actually know we have infringed on the Social Security surplus. Let me repeat for the Senate, in March, April, or May of next year, I predict with almost absolute certainty that a budget comes out close to this budget produced by Senator Stevens and the appropriations bill and will not take any money out of Social Security. They can argue that the President's numbers wouldn't have taken any out--CBO's numbers might. But essentially, when the bell tolls and we do the reevaluation, we are going to be able to say to the senior citizens we didn't touch Social Security. The .97 is important to that solution.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, section 314 of the Congressional Budget Act, as amended, requires the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to adjust the appropriate budgetary aggregates and the allocation for the Appropriations Committee to reflect amounts provided for emergency requirements. I hereby submit revisions to the 2000 Senate Appropriations Committee allocations, pursuant to section 302 of the Congressional Budget Act, in the following amounts: [In million of dollars] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Budget Authority Outlays ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Current Allocation: General purpose discretionary.................... 557,504 561,698 Violent crime reduction fund..................... 4,500 5,554 Highways......................................... ......... 24,574 Mass transit..................................... ......... 4,117 Mandatory........................................ 321,502 304,297

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague Senator Bingaman to introduce legislation that will compensate our veterans who fought at Bataan and Corregidor and were later held prisoner. I do not think words can fully describe the bravery of these veterans and the horrific conditions they endured, but I think a quote from Lt. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright provides an insight into these men: They were the first to fire and last to lay down their arms, and only reluctantly doing so after being given a direct order. The 200th and 515th Coast Artillery better known as the New Mexico Brigade played a prominent and heroic role in the fierce fighting that took place in the Philippines. For four months the men of the 200th and the 515th held off the Japanese only to be finally overwhelmed by disease and starvation. Today every student in his or her history class learns about the tragic result of the Battle for Bataan. The survivors of the battle were subjected to the horrors and atrocities of the 65 mile ``Death March.'' As if this were not enough, following the infamous march these men were held for over 40 months in Prisoner of War Camps. Sadly, of the eighteen hundred men in the Regiment, less than nine hundred returned home and a third of those passed away within a year of returning. I simply cannot imagine what it must have been like for these men. I would now like to briefly discuss the Bill we are introducing. This legislation offers long overdue compensation to a select group of men who served in the Philippines at Bataan and Corregidor during World War II. The bill authorizes the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to pay $20,000 to any veteran, or his surviving spouse, who served at Bataan or Corregidor, was captured and held as a prisoner of war, and was forced to perform slave labor as a prisoner in Japan during World War II. There is one final point that I want to make as a matter of simple fairness. I believe that in the upcoming months the federal tax implications should be examined. It may be necessary to provide that the $20,000 payment should be excluded from federal income taxes. Without an exclusion, the interaction between a lump sum payment, the social security income tax earnings limitation could subject some of the survivors of the Bataan death march to one-time exorbitant tax rates in excess of 50 percent. We don't want the federal government to give the compensation with one hand, only to have it taken away by the IRS. Thank you and I look forward to working with my colleagues on this issue.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague Senator Bingaman to introduce legislation that will compensate our veterans who fought at Bataan and Corregidor and were later held prisoner. I do not think words can fully describe the bravery of these veterans and the horrific conditions they endured, but I think a quote from Lt. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright provides an insight into these men: They were the first to fire and last to lay down their arms, and only reluctantly doing so after being given a direct order. The 200th and 515th Coast Artillery better known as the New Mexico Brigade played a prominent and heroic role in the fierce fighting that took place in the Philippines. For four months the men of the 200th and the 515th held off the Japanese only to be finally overwhelmed by disease and starvation. Today every student in his or her history class learns about the tragic result of the Battle for Bataan. The survivors of the battle were subjected to the horrors and atrocities of the 65 mile ``Death March.'' As if this were not enough, following the infamous march these men were held for over 40 months in Prisoner of War Camps. Sadly, of the eighteen hundred men in the Regiment, less than nine hundred returned home and a third of those passed away within a year of returning. I simply cannot imagine what it must have been like for these men. I would now like to briefly discuss the Bill we are introducing. This legislation offers long overdue compensation to a select group of men who served in the Philippines at Bataan and Corregidor during World War II. The bill authorizes the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to pay $20,000 to any veteran, or his surviving spouse, who served at Bataan or Corregidor, was captured and held as a prisoner of war, and was forced to perform slave labor as a prisoner in Japan during World War II. There is one final point that I want to make as a matter of simple fairness. I believe that in the upcoming months the federal tax implications should be examined. It may be necessary to provide that the $20,000 payment should be excluded from federal income taxes. Without an exclusion, the interaction between a lump sum payment, the social security income tax earnings limitation could subject some of the survivors of the Bataan death march to one-time exorbitant tax rates in excess of 50 percent. We don't want the federal government to give the compensation with one hand, only to have it taken away by the IRS. Thank you and I look forward to working with my colleagues on this issue.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, in an era of deregulation, it is imperative that we focus on the public health and safety concerns that may surface in the rush to eliminate excess costs in energy production. One such concern involves the decommissioning and decontamination (D&D) of retired nuclear power plants. The nuclear industry confronts not only the difficulty of providing a competitive energy source in a changing regulatory environment, the funds accumulated to date to cover D&D costs are not sufficient to ensure proper cleanup unless measures are put into place that continue fee collection for the duration of each plant's service life. This bill establishes a framework to ensure adequate fee collection to cover nuclear decommissioning and decontamination costs in a changing regulatory environment. Today, nuclear generating units provide almost a quarter of the country's annual electricity generation. Over the next twenty years, a substantial number of these nuclear power plants reach the end of their 40-year licenses. Some will apply for a license renewal, which should be a straightforward and expeditious process. All plants, at some point, however, will face retirement. Whenever retirement occurs, decommissioning follows--this requires safe dismantling and disposal of all irradiated components. Upon acquiring a license to operate a nuclear power plant, licensees also commit to decommission the plant upon closure. Utilities are required to set aside funds for decommissioning. In the past, State regulators generally allowed fee collection for decommissioning obligations through rates over the entire service lives of the nuclear power plants. This method spread the costs of decommissioning the plant to all the customers served by the plant over the entire course of the plant's service life. As the electricity market moves toward deregulation, the nuclear industry confronts a profound problem. First, fee collection was structured such that accrual of sufficient funds required the full life of the plant, and regulators often undercut the amount of fees collected in order to keep energy prices down. Second, under funding also results from escalating decommmissioning costs due to expanded regulatory requirements, lower than expected growth due to loss of load and customer exodus, rate settlements, and the lag in collecting funds due to ratemaking delays. Lastly, decommissioning cost recovery for most utilities, including nuclear, is ``back-end loaded.'' Meaning, cost recovery is designed to generate much larger contributions to the fund in latter years. In short, the funding of decommissioning has not kept pace with the aging of the units. For example, today, a nuclear plant licensee of a 15-year-old plant would have collected only approximately 5 percent of the funds necessary to meet decommissioning obligations. In addition, these nuclear plant licensees currently have no means of ensuring that they can continue to collect fees from consumers to ensure decommissioning obligations are met. The magnitude of the potential shortfall in cost recovery for decommissioning obligations is staggering. On an aggregate basis, utilities' decommissioning trust funds currently are funded at approximately 25 percent of the estimated costs--about $9 billion. Nuclear plants, however, are approximately 43 percent through their expected service lives. Total projected D&D costs will exceed $35 billion, leaving a current shortfall of about $26 billion. The monumental size of this problem is underscored by the following comparison: FERC allowed recovery of $10 billion of total stranded costs during the restructuring of the natural gas industry. the nuclear industry's current dilemma is two and a half times greater. Two recent publications underscore the critical need to provide assurance that decommissioning funds can be collected and are adequate to cover costs. A study which I chaired by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) entitled The Regulatory Process for Nuclear Power Reactors addressed this issue. The CSIS report stated, ``Restructuring of the electric utility industry could exacerbate the problem of adequate decommissioning funding and could threaten the ability of nuclear power plant owners to recover funds for decommissioning and for nuclear waste disposal in electric rates.'' The June 1999 report Nuclear Power Plant Decommissioning Under Utility Restructuring by the National Conference of State Legislatures strongly urged a ``review of current decommissioning legislation, especially if considering or passing deregulation. The legislation I am introducing today creates a backstop to ensure that decommissioning fees can continue to be collected regardless of forthcoming changes in the regulatory environment. Because full, safe decommissioning is vital to public health and safety, this legislation is required to ensure that adequate funds for decommissioning are available to power plant licensees upon closure of their nuclear plants. Let me briefly describe the mechanism established in this bill to ensure that adequate funds are collected. First, nuclear power plant licensees are allowed to petition the NRC for determination of adequacy of their nuclear decommissioning trust funds. This petition process allows a full review of licensees' decommissioning costs and available funding. The petition process allows full public notice and comment. In other words, the NRC will determine each licensee's current and ongoing revenue requirement necessary to ensure adequate funds are accumulated in the trust fund at the appropriate time. Second, the Act amends the Federal Power Act to enable licensees to apply to the FERC, in the case of wholesale rates, or state commissions, for retail rates, for an order establishing rates or charges for collection of revenues necessary to meet NRC determined requirements. Depending on the consumer base served by the nuclear licensee, either the FERC or the state PUCs will be required to incorporate the NRC determined decommissioning cost and revenue requirements in their rate structure. This translates into a negligible fee added to consumers' monthly bills that will guarantee adequate cleanup upon closure of the nuclear plants that met their energy needs. This measure is simple, pragmatic, and safeguards our safety and health needs. We must act now to ensure adequate funding for the safe decommissioning of nuclear units. The awkward jurisdictional position of this issue--caught in a gap between federal agencies and state regulatory authorities--creates a situation in which inconsistent regimes interfere with federally mandated safety measures. This situation presents an unacceptable uncertainty and risk for the health and safety of the citizens and for the economy. As a matter of public policy, to protect public health and safety, as well as to preserve sound energy and economic policy, adequate funding of decommissioning obligations must be assured. This act addresses this concerns and creates a practical mechanism to ensure the decommissioning funds will be adequate to safe closure of nuclear plants in the future. Mr. President, I ask that the bill be printed in the Record. The bill follows:

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator. I want to take a few minutes and look at this simple chart. We have been engaged for many years--in this Senator's case, 26 years--in talking about getting the expenditures of our Government down so we do not continue to incur huge deficits that force our children in the future to pay for our bills. We got to the point where that was something being spread across this land and everybody understood it. They said: Let's stop spending more than we take in. Have we succeeded? Are we really doing something about how big Government was growing, and have we taken it by the horns and said we are going to do something about it or not? This is a simple bar graph which shows in 1970-1975, the combined growth in Government for all of the entitlements--military and discretionary spending--was almost 11 percent. In 1975-1980, it was up even from that. It grew 12.2 percent. From 1980- 1985, looking at this chart that has it in detail, all spending grew at 10 percent. From 1985-1990, all spending grew at 5.8 percent. It kept coming down. Guess what it is for the last 5 years, I say to my friend from Tennessee. The combined growth of Government--entitlements, domestic and military--is now down to an annual spending of 2.8 percent, and that is made up of defense spending at 1 percent growth and nondefense discretionary at 1.4 percent annually. I know we get into arguments on the floor and those who are worried about spending try to outdo each other as to how much we are going to save and make arguments of every single proposal that comes along in terms of cutting more--let's take some out of this program. All of those are good ideas. We are governed by a majority, so eventually whatever ideas you have, you have to get at least 51 votes. Success in terms of getting Government down in size so we can live with it and do not have to incur significant deficits every year has occurred most significantly in the last 5 years. I remind everyone, throughout all these other years, we have had either a Republican President and both Houses Democrat, a Democrat President with both Houses Democrat, or a Republican President with one House Republican. And guess which combination has been most effective in getting spending down. It is when the Congress has Republicans in the House and Senate. For 5\1/2\ years, we have had the lowest growth in Government at every level since 1970. It is pretty revealing. I share with anybody who wants to go through it--and we can talk more about how it has happened--but when people think the Congress did not do much, we were not big players in getting us a balanced budget, I submit this is a pretty big part of it. If those went back up to the levels that were here 15, 20 years ago, we would sure be looking around wondering, are we ever going to stop spending Social Security money to pay for the expenses of our ordinary Government? I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask consent I be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I did not come to the floor to speak exclusively on the issue of Social Security and the President's proposal. But before my good friend from Nebraska leaves, I wish to make a couple of comments. Then I would like to share with the Senate some very optimistic information with reference to our fiscal house and how well we are doing in terms of growth of government. I suggest Republicans did a good job when they came up with the idea of locking up these Social Security trust funds so they wouldn't be spent. Frankly, even as short a time ago as last year, nobody thought we could quickly come upon a year when we would not spend a bit of the Social Security trust fund money in paying for our Government and would even have some left over to start a pay-down of Social Security. But in the year just passed, that actually happened. Things changed so much for the positive that last year we did not touch Social Security trust fund money and we accumulated $1 billion in surplus on budget, and it has nowhere to go except to pay down the debt--which helps with Social Security. Frankly, I do not quite understand why, in the waning moments of this year, over the weekend in his weekly radio address, the President came up with a new idea about Social Security. I speculate maybe the idea of the lockbox and not spending any Social Security money was beginning to take hold and, of course, his new proposal takes 15 years, not 10 years, to get his job done that he perceives to be in the interests of Social Security solvency. I remind everyone, if in fact the President has a way, with no new taxes, which none of us want, no benefit changes, no increases in what each particular citizen of the United States who puts money through the payroll account--they don't have any share of the profits and the increases that come, either from Wall Street or from investing in debt--somehow the Wizard of Oz came upon us and all of a sudden we can do this by just investing IOUs. As my friend from Texas said, you just take them as a piece of paper, walk them across the street, put them in a cabinet, and say: We have given them to the Social Security trust fund. The President has one better. At a point in time way out there somewhere he is going to say: That is not the only thing I am doing. I am going to credit the Social Security account for the interest that was saved on the national debt by us putting those IOUs in that box. Over the weekend I had a chance to discuss this. I look forward to seeing some details. I cannot believe what I am hearing. But I nicknamed this proposal and I think it is so. I think it is the ``Godzilla'' of all gimmicks. That is the way I would classify it, for those who are wondering about gimmicks. I am not going to talk much more about that. But I will say to the President, if you have a little time left before you leave, and if you would like to fix Social Security, then engage in a bipartisan way, with Senators on both sides of the aisle, who would like to do something that would help make Social Security a better investment for the millions of Americans who are having this money taken out of their payroll and put in an account that yields them little or nothing. If you had sitting in front of you a group of 22-year-olds, 25-year- olds, just starting out their work years in the American marketplace, and you said to them: For all of you, what is one of the worst investments you could make, in terms of putting money away until you are 65 and then drawing on it? anybody looking at it would have to say it is the Social Security system. It is one of the worst investments you could make because you do not get anything on your investment. Sooner or later, somebody is going to come into the Presidency--if this President would like to do it, he ought to change his mind again and come to the party--and say we have to make that a better investment. By making a better investment, you enhance the value of the trust fund and thus make it more solvent over time. Republicans invented the Social Security lockbox; Democratic Senators oppose it. Republicans support locking away every penny of the Social Security surplus--we have made that clear repeatedly to the President. In fact, we came up with the idea of the Social Security lockbox and have tried to pass legislation in the Senate on at least five occasions. This lockbox would stop the President and Congress from spending any of the Social Security surplus. Unfortunately, Democratic Senators have filibustered the lockbox. The President wants to spend Social Security Surpluses. Congress has nearly completed action on all 13 appropriations bills, and we will do it without touching Social Security. But the President and his staff are demanding that we spend more on scores of government programs, including foreign aid, but they have yet to provide any credible proposals as offsets. Republicans and many Democrats have made it clear that we will not raise taxes to support the President's spending programs. If the President persists in demanding new spending without specifying a credible offset, I can only conclude that he wants to tap Social Security for his programs. The President's proposal for Social Security solvency is the ``Godzilla'' of gimmicks. The President proposes no changes whatsoever in the structure of Social Security, and yet he wants the American people to believe he has made ``tough choices'' to save the program. It is simply not credible. In fact, for all the talk about gimmicks, it seems to me that this is the ``Godzilla' of gimmicks--a $34 trillion gimmick. The President's plan is nothing more than paper transfers from the general fund of government to Social Security, amounting to a cumulative $34 trillion in new IOUs in Social Security between now and 2050. At some point, when Social Security needs those IOUs to pay benefits, a future President and a future Congress will have to raise taxes to meet those obligations. So, in effect, this proposal is a $34 trillion tax increase on America's future. There is bipartisan opposition to this gimmick in the Senate, including Senators Breaux, Kerrey, and Robb, all of whom are on the Finance Committee with jurisdiction over Social Security. Let me read some quotes from the experts: David Walker, Comptroller General GAO, in testimony before Senate Budget Committee, February 1999: [President Clinton's Social Security proposal] does not come close to ``saving Social Security''. Under the President's proposal, the changes to the Social Security program will be more perceived than real: although the trust funds will appear to have more resources as a result of the proposal, nothing about the program has changed. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, in Q&A before Senate Banking Committee, July 1999, when asked if he supported using general revenues to shore up Social Security--which is the basis of the President's SS IOU scheme--the Chairman said this: I would very much prefer that we did not move in the direction of general revenues because in effect, once you do that, then you've opened up the system completely and the issue of what SS taxes are becomes utterly irrelevant. And I'm not terribly certain that serves our budgetary processes in a manner which I think is appropriate. Federal Reserve Board Member Edward Gramlich and Chairman of the 1994-1995 Social Security Advisory Council, in testimony before Senate Finance Committee, February 1999: During the deliberations of the 1994-1996 Social Security Advisory Commission, we considered whether general revenues should be used to help shore up the Social Security program. This idea was unanimously rejected for a number of reasons . . . there are serious drawbacks to relaxing SS' long-run budget constraint through general revenue transfers. The Concord Coalition, in a press release, September 27, 1999: . . . we do not agree that [the President's] plan to credit Social Security with new Treasury IOUs representing interest savings from presumed debt reduction does anything to save the program . . . All it does is simply paper over Social Security's looming shortfalls. Gene Steuerle, senior fellow, Urban Institute, in testimony before Senate Finance Committee, February 1999: My own assessment is an additional transfer from the government's left hand (Treasury) to its right hand (Social Security) . . . tends to mask too much. The simple fact is that future taxpayers must cover the cost of the interest and principal on any gift of bonds from Treasury to Social Security. The President could have had a legacy if he had shown leadership. The President spent most of 1998 telling the country he would show true leadership on Social Security. If he had proposed real reform, many in Congress were ready to work with him. Unfortunately, he chose this non- reform, dooming his chances of any real legacy in Social Security.

Mr. DOMENICI. Absolutely. Surely.

Mr. DOMENICI. You have to tell me.

Mr. DOMENICI. That is correct.

Mr. DOMENICI. Right.

Mr. DOMENICI. The reason I did not understand the Senator's question is that sometimes we use 5 years. The President came along early this year for the first time in history and used 15 years. Thus, we said 15 is too long; let's do 10. But I am not sure where we are going to be on a permanent basis because we are looking at this to see what makes sense. I think what the Senator just said is absolutely right.

Mr. DOMENICI. 2015.

Mr. DOMENICI. That is correct.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, in an era of deregulation, it is imperative that we focus on the public health and safety concerns that may surface in the rush to eliminate excess costs in energy production. One such concern involves the decommissioning and decontamination (D&D) of retired nuclear power plants. The nuclear industry confronts not only the difficulty of providing a competitive energy source in a changing regulatory environment, the funds accumulated to date to cover D&D costs are not sufficient to ensure proper cleanup unless measures are put into place that continue fee collection for the duration of each plant's service life. This bill establishes a framework to ensure adequate fee collection to cover nuclear decommissioning and decontamination costs in a changing regulatory environment. Today, nuclear generating units provide almost a quarter of the country's annual electricity generation. Over the next twenty years, a substantial number of these nuclear power plants reach the end of their 40-year licenses. Some will apply for a license renewal, which should be a straightforward and expeditious process. All plants, at some point, however, will face retirement. Whenever retirement occurs, decommissioning follows--this requires safe dismantling and disposal of all irradiated components. Upon acquiring a license to operate a nuclear power plant, licensees also commit to decommission the plant upon closure. Utilities are required to set aside funds for decommissioning. In the past, State regulators generally allowed fee collection for decommissioning obligations through rates over the entire service lives of the nuclear power plants. This method spread the costs of decommissioning the plant to all the customers served by the plant over the entire course of the plant's service life. As the electricity market moves toward deregulation, the nuclear industry confronts a profound problem. First, fee collection was structured such that accrual of sufficient funds required the full life of the plant, and regulators often undercut the amount of fees collected in order to keep energy prices down. Second, under funding also results from escalating decommmissioning costs due to expanded regulatory requirements, lower than expected growth due to loss of load and customer exodus, rate settlements, and the lag in collecting funds due to ratemaking delays. Lastly, decommissioning cost recovery for most utilities, including nuclear, is ``back-end loaded.'' Meaning, cost recovery is designed to generate much larger contributions to the fund in latter years. In short, the funding of decommissioning has not kept pace with the aging of the units. For example, today, a nuclear plant licensee of a 15-year-old plant would have collected only approximately 5 percent of the funds necessary to meet decommissioning obligations. In addition, these nuclear plant licensees currently have no means of ensuring that they can continue to collect fees from consumers to ensure decommissioning obligations are met. The magnitude of the potential shortfall in cost recovery for decommissioning obligations is staggering. On an aggregate basis, utilities' decommissioning trust funds currently are funded at approximately 25 percent of the estimated costs--about $9 billion. Nuclear plants, however, are approximately 43 percent through their expected service lives. Total projected D&D costs will exceed $35 billion, leaving a current shortfall of about $26 billion. The monumental size of this problem is underscored by the following comparison: FERC allowed recovery of $10 billion of total stranded costs during the restructuring of the natural gas industry. the nuclear industry's current dilemma is two and a half times greater. Two recent publications underscore the critical need to provide assurance that decommissioning funds can be collected and are adequate to cover costs. A study which I chaired by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) entitled The Regulatory Process for Nuclear Power Reactors addressed this issue. The CSIS report stated, ``Restructuring of the electric utility industry could exacerbate the problem of adequate decommissioning funding and could threaten the ability of nuclear power plant owners to recover funds for decommissioning and for nuclear waste disposal in electric rates.'' The June 1999 report Nuclear Power Plant Decommissioning Under Utility Restructuring by the National Conference of State Legislatures strongly urged a ``review of current decommissioning legislation, especially if considering or passing deregulation. The legislation I am introducing today creates a backstop to ensure that decommissioning fees can continue to be collected regardless of forthcoming changes in the regulatory environment. Because full, safe decommissioning is vital to public health and safety, this legislation is required to ensure that adequate funds for decommissioning are available to power plant licensees upon closure of their nuclear plants. Let me briefly describe the mechanism established in this bill to ensure that adequate funds are collected. First, nuclear power plant licensees are allowed to petition the NRC for determination of adequacy of their nuclear decommissioning trust funds. This petition process allows a full review of licensees' decommissioning costs and available funding. The petition process allows full public notice and comment. In other words, the NRC will determine each licensee's current and ongoing revenue requirement necessary to ensure adequate funds are accumulated in the trust fund at the appropriate time. Second, the Act amends the Federal Power Act to enable licensees to apply to the FERC, in the case of wholesale rates, or state commissions, for retail rates, for an order establishing rates or charges for collection of revenues necessary to meet NRC determined requirements. Depending on the consumer base served by the nuclear licensee, either the FERC or the state PUCs will be required to incorporate the NRC determined decommissioning cost and revenue requirements in their rate structure. This translates into a negligible fee added to consumers' monthly bills that will guarantee adequate cleanup upon closure of the nuclear plants that met their energy needs. This measure is simple, pragmatic, and safeguards our safety and health needs. We must act now to ensure adequate funding for the safe decommissioning of nuclear units. The awkward jurisdictional position of this issue--caught in a gap between federal agencies and state regulatory authorities--creates a situation in which inconsistent regimes interfere with federally mandated safety measures. This situation presents an unacceptable uncertainty and risk for the health and safety of the citizens and for the economy. As a matter of public policy, to protect public health and safety, as well as to preserve sound energy and economic policy, adequate funding of decommissioning obligations must be assured. This act addresses this concerns and creates a practical mechanism to ensure the decommissioning funds will be adequate to safe closure of nuclear plants in the future. Mr. President, I ask that the bill be printed in the Record. The bill follows:

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now stand in recess subject to the call of the Chair.