Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. I will have my staff find the pages. On page 2 of the bill, there is ``general authorities residual to the secretary.'' I refer the Senator's attention to section 213(c): The secretary shall be responsible for all policies of the agency. So that is the overall general policy here. That is, of course, consistent with the recommendations of the Rudman report. It is what we have always said has to be--that ultimately the Secretary has the authority to impose his will on this new Agency in any way he should desire to do so, whether it is agency specific, or with respect to a departmentwide policy. We provide for that. The problem with this amendment and the problem with the last sentence is that it would remove from the Under Secretary in charge of the nuclear program the ability to have policies different from general DOE-wide policies because it says: The director of the agency may establish agency-specific policies so long as they are fully consistent with the departmental policies established by the Secretary. I can give an example of polygraphs. If you read the first sentence of this amendment, the Secretary may use his immediate staff to assist him in developing these departmentwide policies. He asks a person not in this new semiautonomous Agency to go out and develop a policy regarding polygraphs. I am using this as a hypothetical. The person comes back and says we shouldn't have polygraphs. That is a departmentwide policy. And the new Under Secretary, in the second sentence, is directed to implement the Secretary's policies within the new Agency. How might he do that? The third sentence: The director of the agency may establish agency-specific policies so long as they are fully consistent with the departmental policies established by the Secretary. We need to allow enough flexibility so there can be some differences. The whole point of the Rudman recommendation is that this new Agency may have to do some things different from the rest of the Department. There may be personnel policies. There may be contracting policies. There may even be policies of security and counterintelligence that would be different in this new entity. But even if they are different--this, I know, goes right to the point of the Senator from Nebraska--even if the person in charge of this new semiautonomous Agency says, look, we have to do things differently with respect to security in our new Agency than you do them in the rest of the Departments, the Secretary of Energy still has the ultimate say as to whether he approves of that and agrees with that or not because he is ultimately in charge. But the way this amendment is written, the new Director wouldn't have any options. He has to do it consistent with the departmentwide policy. He has no discretion to do it differently. He has to have this discretion to do it differently if he thinks it is necessary. Then if the Secretary says, no, I don't want you to, the Secretary still wins. He is still the boss. That is my answer to the Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will respond on my time, and if we need more time, we can utilize that. Senator Kerrey raises the exact right question. In many respects, we are not that far apart. I think this language creates one specific, big problem, however. In the bill, we provide the authority for the Secretary to establish not only departmentwide policies on security, counterintelligence, and other matters, but also he would have the residual authority to direct those issues within the new Agency itself if he really wanted.

Mr. KYL. How much time do we have on this side?

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will take the first few minutes and reply to Senator Levin's amendment, and then Senator Domenici will add his thoughts. I first note that this language was handed to us as this debate began, and so it has been a little difficult to correlate the provisions of this amendment with the provisions of our bill and with the recommendations of the Rudman report. I think it is fair to say the following four things about this amendment. First of all, it is not necessary. I haven't really heard any explanation of why we need this different language. I believe that our bill, which tracks the report of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, allows the Secretary of Energy to create policies that are applicable to the entire department and that the implementation of security and counterintelligence within this new Agency is the responsibility of the new Under Secretary that is responsible for nuclear stewardship, but that the Secretary of Energy will always have the ultimate say with respect to those security and counterintelligence policies. That is what our bill calls for. That is what the Rudman report recommends should be done. I don't see any need for this different way of saying it. There are also at least two problems with the language itself. I am a little concerned because Senator Levin scores a debater point by saying one of the sentences of his three-sentence amendment comes right out of a letter that Senator Rudman wrote to us. It is not the Rudman report, but it is a letter that he sent to us. Since we have been saying that our legislation tracks the Rudman recommendation, therefore, we have to accept that sentence. That is, of course, a dual standard. Senator Levin is perfectly willing to reject parts of the PFIAB report. Under his analysis, then he should accept everything the Rudman report recommends as well. The truth of the matter is, we have tried to track it as closely as possible, and I think we have done a good job. We haven't included the sentence from the letter that Senator Rudman wrote. It is not necessary. I think there is a dual standard being applied here. I think all of us can appreciate the fact that we are trying to track it as closely as we can, consistent with writing this legislation. The two primary points of objection I have to the amendment are these: As a practical matter, this whole exercise is to do things differently within this new Agency than they are done departmentwide. That is the essence of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board report. It says: You need to create a new semiautonomous agency that doesn't have to do things the way they are done all over the rest of the Department of Energy. That has been the problem--all these different people making rules and regulations and policies. It is impossible to protect the Nation's security and our foremost secrets when you have so many people, in effect, with their finger in the pie. You need to create a very specific semiautonomous agency that has control over those nuclear programs, and don't apply all of the other departmentwide policies, as good as they may be for the rest of the Department, to this new Agency. Many of the departmentwide policies will be appropriate, but undoubtedly some of them will not be. The whole point is to do things differently than they have been done in the past and to have the flexibility to do them differently within this new Agency. For example, suppose the Secretary says to one of his staff assistants: I want you to develop a new departmentwide policy on polygraph tests. This person goes out and does the research, comes back and says: We shouldn't have any polygraph tests. The Secretary of Energy says: Okay, that is our departmentwide policy. Under the Levin amendment, this new Agency, this new semiautonomous Agency that is responsible for control of our nuclear secrets, wouldn't have any choice but to implement that departmentwide policy. That is exactly what this language says. I will read it, Mr. President: The director of the agency may establish agency-specific policies so long as they are fully consistent with the departmental policies established by the Secretary. No flexibility to do anything different. That is the whole point. That is what the PFIAB report said: You have to do things differently. You cannot expect a different result if you keep doing them the same old way. You cannot require, for this very unique, highly technical business of making nuclear weapons, the application of all the same standards and policies that apply throughout the Agency. The one example used frequently is the refrigerator standards. But there are so many differ examples you can point to. Agencywide policies may be fine agencywide, but they should not necessarily be applicable to this new Agency. They may be, but they aren't necessarily. That is the approach our bill takes. It says the Secretary can develop these agencywide policies, but the Director of this new Agency has to have some flexibility to say some of the things that apply to other parts of the Department of Energy should not apply here; they are not applicable, and they may even be dangerous. That it the whole point of what we are trying to accomplish. When the amendment says the Director of the Agency for Nuclear Stewardship is responsible for the implementation of the Secretary's security, counterintelligence, and intelligence policies within the new Agency-- and he can only devise agency-specific policies as far as they are fully consistent with the departmentwide policies--you are tying his hands behind his back; he is set up for failure before he even starts. This amendment is very dangerous. One reason it is dangerous is that the language seems to track fairly closely elements of the report. But again, what we are saying is the Secretary, of course, can develop agencywide policies. Some of those will be applicable to this new Agency, but they don't necessarily have to be. That is where we diverge. That is a critical difference here. It would be impossible for this new Agency Director to do his job if he were bound by this language. Our whole point is to have accountability and responsibility of this person. Well, I would not take the job if I were given the responsibility to protect our Nation's nuclear secrets and then I was told: However, you cannot establish any policy within your new Agency that is inconsistent with departmentwide policies. I would not undertake that job because I would not be able to do it the way I thought best. Mr. President, with respect for the Senator from Michigan, I have to say this is the wrong approach and we will have to oppose this amendment.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Lugar from Indiana be added as a cosponsor to the Kyl-Domenici-Murkowski amendment.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will be happy to defer to Senator Levin. He is prepared now to report on one of his amendments.

Mr. KYL. Fine. Amendment No. 1261 To Amendment No. 1258

Mr. KYL. I inquire, does the Senator from Michigan want to speak next? We have more time on our side. Would he want to address the Senate?

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, perhaps we should suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL. Yes.

Mr. KYL. We will have to defer. I am advised the majority leader is concerned about the amount of time and is desirous of having a vote as soon as possible. I think perhaps after Senator Domenici has spoken, we should confer and attempt to resolve this very quickly along the lines the leader has requested.

Mr. KYL. Certainly, Senator Domenici wants to speak to this issue. To the extent we need any further discussion, I am sure we will agree to provide the time for that. I agree with Senator Kerrey; the more bipartisan this is the better. I say the first goal is security. Frankly, I detect a flaw in the exact wording of this amendment. If we can eliminate that flaw and thereby achieve bipartisan consensus on this point, obviously, that is a twofer. It not only achieves our policy objective but the political objective of the bipartisan approach as well.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, it appears to me that we have achieved a meeting of the minds--almost--and therefore the language could be worked out. Let me restate the two concerns I have, both of which I think we would have to satisfy. In the second sentence of the amendment, it says that the Director of the Agency is responsible for the implementation of the Secretary's policies within the new Agency. Obviously, that has to mean to the extent that they are applicable to this new Agency and not inconsistent with any agency-specific recommendations. If the Senator has that language following the first sentence, it doesn't mean that it means whatever the departmentwide policies are this new Director has to implement them. That is not what we intend. Secondly, to the final sentence, the Senator is correct, this head of this new Agency should have the ability to have agency-specific policies with respect to security and counterintelligence and virtually anything else. It is always subject to the Secretary's approval. I don't think in this one unique situation we want to say that prior to the effectiveness of any policy, the head of this new Agency has to obtain the approval of the Secretary. But since he has to report to the Secretary, the Secretary, obviously, has the ability to say no. Clearly, we want this Agency to be running not on its own but semiautonomously. If the new person has to go get approval from people before he does things--obviously, he would have to notify the Secretary--then I think that could diminish his ability to operate the new entity. However, if the principle is agreed to that there can be, and indeed should be in some cases, different policies within this new Agency than departmentwide, and if we understand that the Secretary always has the ability to say no or to say do it differently, then I will say positively that I think we have a meeting of the minds and it is simply a matter of drafting the language in a way to achieve that. I thought our bill did that. If the Senator thinks we need to modify it somewhat, clearly we can talk about it.

Mr. KYL. The Senator said it very well. Obviously, the whole intention here is that there be a lot of things done differently in this new Agency than would otherwise be done within the Department. Our problem with Senator Levin's amendment is it not only implies but in the last sentence actually directs that whatever is departmentwide also has to exist in this new Agency--no exceptions; ``fully consistent with.'' That is just not what this whole reform is all about. There are going to be a lot of things with a new agency that are going to be different. To the Senator's point, as I said before, I wouldn't take the job as the new Under Secretary in charge of this new Agency if I took the job knowing that I had to begin by complying with all departmentwide policies.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the point is as long as they are consistent with departmental policies established by the Secretary. In other words, the policies the Secretary establishes for all of the other Departments would control. We don't want it to. I might add that the language that I quoted before was specifically requested by the Senator: The Secretary shall be responsible for all policies of the Agency. We think that is important to clarify--that in the end he always has the authority. If this language says something, it is not wise to try to fix that amendment during debate. But if the language in effect says that the Director of the Agency may establish agency-specific policies, it is obviously always subject to review by the Secretary--no problem. But when I say in the language that they have to be consistent with departmental policies, obviously that infers previously established. Then you could have a problem.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I would like to return to the business of today, the Intelligence Committee authorization bill and the underlying Kyl-Domenici-Murkowski amendment to that authorization bill which provides for the reorganization of the Department of Energy with a semiautonomous agency responsible for our nuclear weapons programs. That is the business of the Senate since this time yesterday. Americans who are watching the activities of the Senate might be a little confused. I would like to try to straighten out some of the confusion. I challenge my colleagues who have a different point of view to express that if, in fact, they care to do so. We are well aware, over the last several years now, of espionage that has been occurring within our nuclear laboratories and other facilities in this country which has resulted in a significant number of very important secrets of this country being obtained by others who should not have them, including, we believe, the Government of China. This is not minor. The secrets that have been obtained, we believe, from our nuclear laboratories include the information necessary to build the most sophisticated weapons ever designed by man. They include the designs for the most sophisticated weapons in our arsenal--the seven or eight nuclear warheads the United States now has on our existing weapons, as well as designs for a weapon that we never produced but which we understand because the Chinese have now said they have; the so-called neutron bomb that they have developed; as well as some other technology dealing with radar, for example, that can detect our submarines under the sea. These are the most sophisticated technological developments of our country in recent years. Design information about these weapons has been obtained by others. So, naturally, one of the questions is: How did it happen, and how can we prevent it from happening in the future? We don't know the answer to the question of how it happened exactly, because people involved in espionage don't come forward and say to you, well, here is what I did. But piecing the information together, we have concluded that it is likely that information was obtained from our nuclear weapons laboratories, and this information got into the wrong hands. So part of the question of how to prevent this in the future is: What do we need to do, if anything, to ensure security at our nuclear laboratories? Now, it turns out that over the years there have been numerous General Accounting Office studies, studies by other independent groups, and even studies of the Department of Energy itself, which has jurisdiction over these National Laboratories, which have highlighted the ongoing problems and have suggested that there have to be changes made in the organizational structure of the DOE if we are ever to stop this espionage. Most recently, the President's own Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, chaired by former Senator Warren Rudman, issued a scathing report and made some very important recommendations about the reorganization of the Department of Energy. In this report, in effect, the Rudman panel said to the President that the Department of Energy will tell you that it can reorganize itself. It can't. It is the problem. Many of the bureaucrats within the Department don't want to reorganize in a way that will solve these problems. They want to protect their turf. Therefore, it is going to have to be up to Congress to pass a new statute that literally reorganizes the Department of Energy to get this done. Now, interestingly, just before that Presidential advisory panel made its recommendations, Senator Domenici of New Mexico, in whose State two of the three primary weapons labs are located, had come to the same conclusion, based upon a lot of these previous reports that I talked about, and had actually developed an idea of how to reorganize the Department of Energy to provide for greater accountability and responsibility. He discussed those ideas with me and with Senator Murkowski, chairman of the Energy Committee. The three of us decided to introduce legislation, which we attempted to attach to the Department of Defense authorization bill back in May, to accomplish this exact result. At that time, for a variety of reasons, the leadership, including Senator Warner and others, said: Don't attach that to this bill, do it later with the intelligence authorization bill--which we now have before us. For one thing, no hearings have been held, and we need time to work out the specific language. So Senators Domenici and Murkowski and I agreed to do that back in May. Since then, there have been, I believe, six different hearings by four different committees specifically on this legislation. Senator Rudman has testified, as has Secretary Richardson, and many others, about this specific legislation. Since the time of our initial introduction of the amendment, the Rudman panel made its recommendations. It was so close to what Senator Domenici and the rest of us had originally proposed that we conformed our legislation to that recommendation so that we were in effect asking the Department to be reorganized exactly along the lines recommended by the President's own advisory panel. That was back in May. A lot of time has now elapsed, obviously--almost 2 months--while we have been going over this. We have been meeting with Secretary Richardson. We have been talking to each other trying to come up with some compromise language where we thought it was appropriate. But in the meantime, we have the question of whether our secrets are being protected at our National Laboratories. The Rudman report, and Senator Rudman's testimony before at least one of these committees in the interim, made it clear that we had not solved the problem. The Cox report made the point that espionage was still continuing. The Rudman report specifically said the recommendations of the Secretary of Energy and the implementation of what he was doing was in effect too little too late; it was not solving the problem; it didn't go far enough; and we had to get on with the urgent business of solving this problem. The reason I point this out is that we agreed to delay even though that delay poses a risk to the people of the United States of America; that more secrets will fly out the window before we get this thing resolved. But we agreed to hold the hearings and to try to get the acquiescence of the Secretary of Energy. He has now finally agreed with the proposition that was recommended to the President's advisory panel that we need a semiautonomous agency. We are now arguing about a lot of the details. But in this matter the details matter. The details matter because it is possible for the bureaucrats within the Department of Energy to scuttle the reform if they can take enough pieces of it out and create the same kind of burdensome, multimanagement kind of structure that exists today which the Rudman report criticized as being so ineffective. We fear that is what some of the amendments which will be proposed will do. We have been trying over the last 48 hours literally to bring this bill before the Senate. We had to actually invoke cloture in order to begin debating the intelligence authorization bill. Democrats objected to the consideration of the intelligence authorization bill. What does that mean? Without an intelligence authorization bill, the programs for fiscal year 2000 in our intelligence community cannot go forward. Why would people object to even considering the bill, not voting on it, but even bringing it up when these kinds of threats to our national security exist? Why would they object to the consideration of the amendment for the reorganization of the Department of Energy along the lines recommended by the President's own panel of advisers, the concept of which has been signed off by his Secretary of Energy? Why would we have this delay? Why now for the last 48 hours have the people who want to amend our proposal not come forward to present this amendment so we can get on with this? We have had this bill pending for 24 hours. People watching might say: Why have we heard speeches about everything under the Sun except the Department of Energy reorganization? The answer is because people who object to our proposal have not come to the floor and have not been willing to offer their own amendments. Senator Domenici has been laboring mightily in the back rooms trying to work out some language differences. We have been willing to meet others more than halfway in trying to resolve differences that we could resolve. We have agreed to accept a couple of amendments and make some modifications to language so we can work together in a bipartisan fashion. But I have yet to hear anybody say, who has proposed amendments that we have accepted, that they will agree with and support the legislation at the end of the day, even if we accept what they have offered. I am not going to suggest a lack of good faith. But there is a matter of national security involved. Time is wasting. I see nobody on the floor willing to debate with us or tell us where they think we are wrong or to offer amendments to what we are trying to propose. Under the rules of the Senate, unless they come down and do that, we are stuck. We don't want to spend all of the time just reiterating what Senators Domenici, Murkowski, Thompson, Bunning, and myself and others have already said on the floor. We could keep talking about this. I sometimes wonder what the American people think. They hear there is a crisis with intelligence. They hear there is a problem with these National Laboratories. They hear there is a suggestion to fix it made to the President by his own advisory board, and we have amendments to implement those recommendations. Yet nothing happens. In fact, people actually object to bringing up the bill that would begin to fix the problem. When we finally bring it up because we invoked cloture, we actually made them vote on that--they all agreed to bring it up at that point-- and nobody comes down to offer amendments. I urge my colleagues, even those who disagree with us, to come to the floor. Let's debate this. If you think you have a legitimate point of view, let's talk it out. Reasonable people can differ about these things. If you have an amendment, bring it to the floor so we can debate and vote on it. But, sooner or later, the American people are going to reach a conclusion, which is that this matter is being delayed. I find it unconscionable that anybody would delay efforts to secure the Nation's most important secrets and to delay our efforts to ensure the security of our National Laboratories. That is what we are all about here. I just hope that sooner rather than later people will be willing to come down and work with us to bring this bill to a conclusion so that we can get on with the important business of this country in protecting our national security. I see Senator Domenici is on the floor. I know he has been working mightily to try to work out some language. I think it would be appropriate now to call upon him for a report on the success of his efforts.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. KYL. There is an issue we have to work out before we can proceed.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I want to report on the status, as I understand, of where we are on the Kyl amendment. When you turn on your television set and see what is happening in the Senate Chamber, you see that the pending business is the Kyl amendment. Since that is me, I thought I should explain we are about ready to bring this to a conclusion, I think a very successful conclusion. In fact, the bipartisanship we were seeking to attain earlier in the day, in fact, will be attained with respect to the adoption of the Kyl amendment. I will back up a little bit and recapitulate where we are. The underlying bill is the intelligence authorization bill. There will be a little bit of business to transact on that after the adoption of the Kyl amendment. Then the intelligence authorization bill can be approved by the Senate and we can move on to other business. In the meantime, the Kyl amendment is the pending amendment. That is the amendment cosponsored by Senator Domenici, Senator Murkowski, and a host of others, that will reform the Department of Energy so it will be less likely in the future that there will be nuclear secrets walking out the door of our National Laboratories. That is an oversimplification, but that is the essence of what we are trying to do. The reorganization involves the creation of a semiautonomous agency within the Department. We basically have followed the recommendations of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in establishing that new Agency. There have been some amendments dealing with details of this reorganization that have been worked out between representatives of the Democratic side and supporters of our amendment. With respect to the most perplexing of the difficulties, a matter on which an earlier vote was held, where the Levin amendment was defeated, we have gone back and rewritten the language of the bill and the Levin amendment and combined the two in a way in which we think both sides think we can make the legislation work. There have been some other concessions, as well, to Members on the Democratic side in order to achieve a broad bipartisan consensus for this legislation. I am pleased to report that there is an agreement, A, to bring this Kyl amendment to a vote very soon, so I think Members should expect that in the very near term we will be able to have a final vote on it; and, B, that it will have the concurrence of many, if not most, of the Members on the other side of the aisle, as well as the Republican side of the aisle. That is because of the concessions that have been made in this intervening time. So my hope is, if there is anyone else who wishes to discuss any aspect of the Kyl amendment, or to raise any questions about it, or about the other amendments that have been offered and to one degree or another worked out in the interim, that they would come and do that now because in just a matter of a few minutes we are going to propound a request to get on with the vote and then be able to move on. I know that is the leader's desire, and we would like to be able to do that. If there isn't anybody at this point who wants to weigh in, let me add one other point about the reason why the Senate is acting on this important matter. At the end of the day, for the Nation, there is nothing more important than our national security. We in the Senate and the House and the President understand that probably our first obligation is to protect the American people. One of the stable elements of the peace that has prevailed over the last many decades has been the nuclear stockpile of the United States, the fact that we have nuclear weapons that provide a deterrent to any attack by an aggressor that would threaten the homeland of the United States. It is a horrible thing to ever contemplate using those weapons, but it is undeniable that the threat of nuclear retaliation has enabled us to have a period of peace literally since World War II with our major adversaries. It is important that the stability the world has seen because of the creation of those weapons not be disrupted by other nations acquiring the same weapons. Obviously, that could unbalance this stability that has been created over time because of the U.S. possession of those weapons. We now know that the design information for all of the nuclear warheads that are currently in our useful arsenal are in the hands of people who could cause us harm if they were able to build weapons from that data, from those plans. That is a very distressing fact. There are ways that we can hope to prevent the development of those weapons. It is going to require us to be very careful about what we sell to other countries and what we permit by way of technology transfer because it is still difficult to build a nuclear weapon even if you have the designs. You have to have the materials; you have to have the computing capacity and the machining capacity, and all the rest of it. So there may still be some ability on our part to have control over our own destiny. There is no question we have now been put at risk because of the theft of these secrets. The National Laboratories, which are responsible for developing those nuclear weapons, have begun to embark upon a very important project called the Stockpile Stewardship Program in which we will attempt to be able to certify the safety and reliability of our nuclear stockpile through computing which will simulate nuclear testing. If that program is compromised, it would, in effect, be the compromise of everything we have, not just the design information but also our analysis of how all these things work. If we cannot protect that, we cannot protect our national security. That is one of the reasons why it is important for us to ensure that nothing else happens in the way of security breaches at our National Labs. The Rudman report made it very clear that under the existing organization of the Department of Energy, we could not guarantee that. There were too many people that had too much influence over things, and, in effect, everybody's responsibility became nobody's responsibility. As a result, that recommendation was: We have to reorganize the Department; and it cannot reorganize itself. Congress needs to pass a statute that provides for that reorganization. That is why we brought forth the Kyl-Domenici-Murkowski amendment. That is why I am very proud of the fact that soon the Senate is going to vote to approve that amendment. By putting it on the intelligence authorization bill, we will enable it to become the law of the land and enable the Department of Energy to be reorganized with this semiautonomous agency having jurisdiction over the nuclear programs, including the National Laboratories. That will be a very big step. No one should rest easy that this is the end of the issue, that we do not have to worry about spying, that this will stop the espionage or the release of secrets that other people should not have. But at least it is one thing we can do, and we believe it will have a significant impact in at least this one area. I guess one of the things many of us were saying was: If we can't do this now, after all of this time, then we think it is fairly clear we can't protect the national security of the United States. I am not saying this is easy. But if we cannot accomplish this reorganization, then, frankly, we are not up to the task. That is why I am so glad we are going to be able to effect this reorganization. After we pass this bill, I am very hopeful that our friends in the House will be willing to work with us. If they have additional ideas, obviously, we want to work with them. But we need to send to the President a bill that he can sign. After all, his own advisory board made the recommendations we are attempting to follow. If I am correct that what we have done has resulted in a broad bipartisan consensus, we will be able to make it clear to the executive branch of the Government that it is the will of the Congress--not just one party, the majority party of the Congress--and that should enable us to also then gain the support from the Secretary of Energy, who has acknowledged that he supports the basic concept of a semiautonomous agency but had some disagreements with us about specifics. By making some changes that go some distance toward meeting his objections, I hope we will not only have the support of both Democrats and Republicans in the Congress but also the Secretary of Energy because we have to get about this quickly. There is no reason, after the Senate acts today, hopefully, that the process cannot begin in anticipation of the fact that this will be the law. No one has to wait until September or whatever date we might actually be able to get the President's signature on this law. This Secretary of Energy has a great opportunity; as the person who came into office about the time all of these revelations were made public and who himself began to make some changes in a positive way, he is in a unique position now to take advantage of the reorganization that we will present to him and actually institute the changes so that his successor, a year and a half from now, whoever that might be, presumably will have in place a very well-functioning Department of Energy with a semiautonomous agency in charge of our nuclear weapons programs. That is something this Secretary will have the opportunity to do. But it is a real challenge for him. If he is able to accomplish that, he will certainly have earned his place in history. Meanwhile, it is up to us to earn our place in history by adopting this legislation and moving the process forward. I am very hopeful we will not see any additional delays now. There have been some in the past. I had complained about that earlier in the day. I am hopeful we will not see any additional delays, that we will move this legislation forward, get it signed into law, and get it implemented. If we do that, we will be proud of the fact that we have helped the security of the people of the United States of America. Mr. President, I will soon propound a request with respect to a vote on my amendment. I will check with a couple other people before I do that. But, again, I think Members should expect that pretty soon we will be having a vote on this amendment.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. I ask the indulgence of the chairman for just a moment. I know he wants to proceed and make a brief comment or two. I want to comment on a couple of things the Senator from Nebraska just said. First of all, I compliment him. He is vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee and probably one of the most productive members of the committee in doing the hard work of protecting our Nation's security, which most people will never know about. For his constituents and others in America who are concerned about these things, they need to know it is the day-in-and-day-out work of the chairman of the committee, Senator Shelby, and Senator Kerrey from Nebraska who make this effort work. Second, I compliment Senator Kerrey for working on this legislation and agreeing to support it at a time when his party's administration was not yet supportive. Secretary Richardson did not agree to the concept of a semiautonomous agency until relatively recently. But Senator Kerrey agreed this was the best approach to take, I think even before Senator Rudman came out with his report. Coming out early and saying it is important to reorganize and to pay attention to the national security concerns at the Department of Energy was something he was willing to do early on in a bipartisan way. His conduct throughout this whole matter is exemplary and should offer guidance to all of us on any issue we face. Party aside, when there is a problem to be addressed, we get in and try to address it. I assure Senator Kerrey and others on the Democratic side this is not something the Republicans look to as an issue but rather as something to get done. I hope before we finish with the amendments, we can continue to work on them and try to get as much of a bipartisan coalition in support of the legislation as is possible because there is nothing partisan about national security and there is nothing partisan when it comes to espionage at our National Laboratories. I thank the Senator from Nebraska for the comments he made, and I compliment both Senator Kerrey and Senator Shelby for the great job they have done. Senator Warner is on the floor. He has been stalwart in his support of our efforts, each day asking: What is new; we will stick with you; we know this has to be done. That kind of support is encouraging. We can get this done. If we get it done quickly, it is good for the American people.

Mr. KYL. I am happy to comply. Mr. President, the point of referring to these 29 GAO reports, 61 internal DOE studies, and more than a dozen reports by outside commissions over the past 20 years is to make the point that now is the time for us to move forward and not to await important studies, and not to await more discussions about how this ought to be done. We have enough evidence of what needs to be done. It is now time to get on with the serious subject of fixing this broken management structure at DOE. Here is the summary of the amendment. This amendment would create a semi-autonomous agency within DOE called the Agency for Nuclear Stewardship. The Agency will be headed by an Under Secretary who ``shall report solely and directly to the Secretary and shall be subject to the supervision and direction of the Secretary.'' Let me digress for a moment to make this point. There are some who would put additional layers of bureaucracy between the Secretary and this Agency for Nuclear Stewardship. That would be a grave mistake. As the Rudman report itself notes, the point is to streamline this agency's responsibility, starting with the Secretary at the top and everyone else reporting to the Deputy Secretary who reports strictly to the Secretary of Energy. If you insert other management layers, you are only getting back to the same kind of problem that the Rudman report has criticized in the past. The Under Secretary for Nuclear Stewardship will have authority over all programs at DOE related to ``nuclear weapons, non-proliferation and fissile material disposition.'' The agency's semi-autonomy (as recommended by the Rudman report) is created by making all employees of the agency accountable to the Secretary and Under Secretary of Energy but not to other officials at DOE outside the Agency. The language reads: All personnel of the Agency for Nuclear Stewardship, in carrying out any function of the Agency, shall be responsible to, and subject to the supervision and direction of, the Secretary and the Under Secretary for Nuclear Stewardship or his designee within the Agency, and shall not be responsible to, or subject to the supervision or direction of, any other officer, employee, or agent of any other part of the Department. The Secretary, however, ``may direct other officials of the Department who are not within the Agency for Nuclear Stewardship to review the Agency's programs and to make recommendations to the Secretary regarding the administration of such programs, including consistency with other similar programs and activities in the Department.'' There is another proposed amendment which we will get to later which suggests that all of the programs and activities of this special new autonomous agency are to act in ways consistent with all other departmental rules and regulations promulgated for all of the other departments within the Department of Energy. That would be a big mistake and get right back to the problem that the Rudman commission noted; that is, that this is a special, unique entity, and that you cannot have everybody else within the Department of Energy controlling what goes on within this particular group. The Under Secretary for Nuclear Stewardship will have 3 Deputy Directors, who will manage programs in the following areas: No. 1. Defense Programs. The national lab directors and heads of weapons production and test sites will report directly to this person, who will be responsible for managing the programs necessary to maintain the safety and reliability of our nuclear stockpile. No. 2. Nonproliferation and fissile materials disposition. This person would manage the Energy Department's efforts to help Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union secure their nuclear weapons and fissile material, as well as plan for how to dispose of dozens of tons of excess plutonium in the United States and Russia; and No. 3. Naval Reactors. This highly successful program which designs, constructs, operates, and disposes of the nuclear reactors used in the U.S. Navy's fleet will continue to operate as it does today, except the Admiral in charge will now report to the Under Secretary for Nuclear Stewardship as well as the Secretary of Energy. As recommended by the Rudman panel, under our amendment, the Under Secretary for Nuclear Stewardship will appoint Chiefs of Counterintelligence, Security, and Intelligence. The Chief of Counterintelligence will develop and implement the Agency's programs to prevent the disclosure of loss of classified information and be responsible for personnel assurance programs, like background checks. The Chief of Security will be responsible for the development and implementation of programs for the protection, control, and accounting of fissile material, and for the physical and cyber-security of all sites in the Agency. And the Chief of Intelligence will manage the Agency's programs for the analysis of foreign nuclear weapons programs. These 3 chiefs will report to the Under Secretary and shall have statutorily provided ``direct access to the Secretary and all other senior officials of the Department and its contractors'' concerning these matters. The amendment calls on the Under Secretary for Nuclear Stewardship to report annually through the Secretary to Congress regarding: No. 1. The adequacy of DOE procedures and policies for protecting national security information. No. 2. Whether each DOE national laboratory and nuclear weapons production and test site is in full compliance with all Departmental security requirements, and if not what measures are being taken to bring a lab into compliance; and No. 3. A description of the number and type of violations of security and counterintelligence laws and requirements at DOE nuclear weapons facilities. Furthermore, the amendment calls for the Under Secretary to keep the Secretary and the Congress fully and currently informed about any potentially significant threat to, or loss of, national security information. The amendment would require every employee of DOE, the national labs, or associated contractors to alert the Under Secretary whenever they believe there is a problem, abuse or violation of the law relating to the management of national security information. And, in order to address concerns that DOE officials were blocked from notifying Congress of security and counterintelligence breaches, the amendment contains a provision stating that ``no officer or employee of the Department of Energy or any other Federal agency or department may delay, deny, obstruct, or otherwise interfere with the preparation'' of these reports to Congress. Mr. President, the Senate should act with urgency to correct the serious problems that exist at our nuclear facilities to halt the flow of our precious nuclear secrets to countries like China. Our amendment is a sound approach to rectifying the systematic problems that have been identified and that exist today, and I am disappointed that Secretary Richardson has not yet embraced the proposal we have submitted. Since as recently as April of 1999, the Secretary of Energy's own Management Review Report stated: Significant problems exist [in DOE] in that roles and responsibilities are unclear; lines of authority and accountability are not well understood or followed; the distinction between headquarters, line and staff functions is unclear, and each is operating with autonomy. Statistics support this view. According to the GAO, from 1980 to 1996, DOE terminated 9 of 18 major defense program projects after spending $1.9 billion and completed only two projects: One behind schedule and overbudget, with the other behind schedule and underbudget. Schedule slippages and cost overruns occurred on many of the remaining seven projects ongoing in 1996. Finally, I note that management problems cannot be divorced from security concerns. As the GAO noted in testimony to the House, continuing management problems at DOE were ``key factors contributing to security problems at the laboratories'' and a ``major reason why DOE has been unable to develop long-term solutions to recurring problems reported by the advisory groups.'' The amendment we offer enjoys broad bipartisan support. In addition to Senator Domenici who chairs the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, and Senator Murkowski who chairs the Energy Committee, it is cosponsored by the chairman and vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senators Shelby and Kerrey; the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and its Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Senators Warner and Smith; chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Thompson; chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Helms; former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Specter; as well as Senator Feinstein, Senator Hutchinson, Senator Gregg, Senator Bunning, Senator Fitzgerald, and the distinguished majority leader, Senator Lott. We cannot delay the implementation of important security and counterintelligence upgrades at our nuclear labs and facilities. Great harm to our Nation's security has already been done, and if we want to prevent further damage, we must act to reform the way we manage our nuclear weapons programs and facilities to create accountability and responsibility. Our most fundamental duty as Senators is to protect the security and the safety of the American people. They deserve no less than our best in this regard. I urge my colleagues to act now to halt the hemorrhage of America's nuclear secrets and to support the adoption of this important amendment.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me first compliment Senator Shelby and Senator Kerrey, the chairman and vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, for their work in presenting the intelligence authorization bill to the floor. This amendment to the Intelligence Authorization bill deals with the all-important question of how the Department of Energy will be reorganized to ensure the theft of our nuclear secrets, as has occurred in the past, will be a question of the past and will not occur in the future. As we heard earlier today, over the past several months, there have been a lot of sobering stories about how our Nation's security has been damaged by China's theft of America's most sensitive secrets--literally the crown jewels of our nuclear arsenal. In searching for a solution to this problem and examining how best to safeguard our Nation and its nuclear secrets, it has become clear the only way this can be accomplished is through a complete overhaul of how the Department of Energy is organized and how it is managed. I think everyone can agree the system is broken. As the bipartisan Cox committee report pointed out, security and counterintelligence at U.S. nuclear facilities has been grossly deficient for many years, enabling China to steal classified information on all of the nuclear warheads currently deployed by the United States, as well as the neutron bomb, and a variety of other military know-how, including missile guidance and reentry vehicle technology. This is incredibly important when a nation has been able to steal the secrets on how to build the most sophisticated weapons ever devised by mankind, those most sophisticated nuclear weapons in our arsenal. When reports of the Chinese espionage at our nuclear labs became public earlier this year, President Clinton asked his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, led by former Senator Warren Rudman, to investigate the cause of these terrible security breaches. Over the course of several weeks, the Presidential panel reviewed more than 700 reports and studies, thousands of pages of classified and unclassified documents, conducted interviews with scores of senior Federal officials, and visited the Department of Energy sites at the heart of the inquiry. At the end of this exhaustive investigation, the panel concluded that the root cause of the Energy Department's dismal security and counterintelligence report was ``organizational disarray, managerial neglect, and a culture of arrogance . . . [which] conspired to create an espionage scandal waiting to happen.'' The Presidential board went on to note that the Department of Energy (DOE) ``represents the best of America's scientific talent and achievement, but it has also been responsible for the worst security record on secrecy that the members of this panel have ever encountered.'' Senator Rudman and his colleagues pulled no punches in describing the problems that exist at DOE or in prescribing bold solutions stating, Reorganization [of DOE] is clearly warranted to resolve the many specific problems with security and counterintelligence in the weapons laboratories, but also to address the lack of accountability that has become endemic throughout the entire Department. The Rudman report noted that, The Department of Energy is a dysfunctional bureaucracy that has proven it is incapable to reforming itself. Accountability at DOE has been spread so thinly and erratically that it is now almost impossible to find. The long traditional and effective method of entrenched DOE and lab bureaucrats is to defeat security reform initiatives by waiting them out. That is from the Rudman report. I ask that our colleagues keep that in mind when they consider amendments that may be offered a little bit later to this amendment-- amendments that people at the Department of Energy would very much like to see passed because it would leave them in control, the very situation that the Rudman report notes is unacceptable and must be changed. Furthermore, the authors of the Rudman report go on to say, We are stunned by the huge numbers of DOE employees involved in overseeing a weapons lab contract. We repeatedly heard from officials at various levels of DOE and the weapons labs how this convoluted and bloated management structure has constantly transmitted confusing and often contradictory mandates to the labs. Although Energy Secretary Richardson has announced several new initiatives to change management and procedures at DOE, the Presidential panel's report states, ``we seriously doubt that his initiatives will achieve lasting success,'' and notes, ``moreover, the Richardson initiatives simply do not go far enough.'' In their report, the Presidential board also described the record of problems with implementing organizational changes ordered by previous Energy Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries, since the entrenched bureaucracy has often reverted to its old tricks once these people left. For example, the report notes that in 1990, then-Secretary Watkins ordered a new series of initiatives on safeguards and security to be implemented. According to the Rudman panel, once Secretary Watkins left two years later, ``the initiatives all but evaporated.'' And furthermore, the panel's report notes, ``Deputy Secretary Charles Curtis in late 1996 investigated clear indications of serious security and counterintelligence problems and drew up a list of initiatives in response. Those initiatives were also dropped after he left office.'' It is because of these problems that the Presidential panel recommended that Congress act to reorganize the Department by statute, so that the bureaucracy could not simple wait out another Secretary of Energy. Senator Domenici, Senator Murkowski, and I have written legislation to implement the group's recommendations. Our proposal would gather all of the parts of our nation's nuclear weapons research, development, and production programs under one semi-autonomous agency within the Energy Department. We need to create a specific separate organizational structure for the weapons programs at DOE, managed by one person who reports only to the Secretary of Energy. And furthermore, we need to separate the nuclear weapons programs at DOE from the rest of the Department that is responsible for energy conservation and environmental management issues. As the Rudman report concluded, semi-autonomous agency, created by statute, is the only way we are going to solve the problems with DOE's management of the nuclear weapons complex. Before explaining the details of this amendment, let me first mention that while the Cox Committee and the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, led by Senator Rudman, have done a great service to the nation by producing high quality reports with excellent recommendations, they are by no means the first people to recommend such changes. Over the past 20 years, at least 29 GAO reports, 61 internal DOE studies, and more than a dozen reports by outside commissions have called for restructuring how the Department is managed. Let us not wait until another forest is consumed to print more studies before we act to correct the serious management problems at DOE.