Frank Murkowski

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I thank my good friend and colleague from Hawaii with whom I have a great rapport. I very much appreciate his statement and the meaningful application of both Hawaii and my State of Alaska, as we look at the potential threat from some of the rogue nations of the world.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, physicians use a specially engineered radioactive molecule as sort of a nuclear Trojan horse in the battle against pancreatic cancer. The molecule is absorbed by the cancer cells and only by the cancer cells. Once inside, the radiation breaks up the DNA and kills the tumor cell--another amazing tool in the war on cancer. The physicians, technicians and even clean-up crews must carefully dispose of the medium that stored the radioactive molecule and other items that may have come in contact with the radioactive materials. There are strict procedures for disposing of such wastes by hospitals, universities, power plants and research facilities. But, in a way, that waste itself is a Trojan horse, sitting innocently in garages or closets in sites all over the country, waiting to be opened up and released on the public by an act of terrorism or of nature like the recent floods the East sustained, or the earthquakes and wildfires more common to the West coast. Most dangerous would be fire which would put the radioactive materials into smoke that could be breathed by anyone near the fire. Why is this a problem? Because there are only three facilities in the entire country that safely can accept such low-level radioactive waste, LLRW: that is material contaminated as a result of medical and scientific research, nuclear power production, biotechnology and other industrial processes. In 1996, about 7,000 cubic meters of LLRW was produced in the nation. A study released by the General Accounting Office at the end of September 1999, holds out little hope for the construction of any new low-level radioactive waste disposal sites as envisioned under the Low- Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act, signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1980. That legislation resulted from states lobbying through the National Governors' Association (NGA) to control and regulate LLRW disposal. An NGA task force, that included Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas and was chaired by Governor Bruce Babbitt of Arizona, recommended the states form special compacts to develop shared disposal facilities. The GAO study, which I requested, states, ``By the end of 1998, states, acting alone or in compacts, had collectively spent almost $600 million attempting to develop new disposal facilities. However, none of these efforts have been successful. Only California successfully licensed a facility, but the federal government did not transfer to the state federal land on which the proposed site is located.'' Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt stopped the California facility at Ward Valley from ever becoming reality. National environmental groups and Hollywood activists made Ward Valley a rallying cry, claiming waste would seep through the desert to the water table and into the Colorado River. They claimed to believe this despite two complete environmental impact statements that found no significant environmental impacts associated with a disposal facility at Ward Valley in the Mojave Desert. Secretary Babbitt asked the National Academy of Science to convene an expert panel to determine whether the Colorado River was threatened, and said he would abide by their conclusions. In May 1995, the Academy scientists concluded that the Colorado River was not at risk. Yet, the property was never transferred. But the importance of this issue extends well beyond the borders of the State of California or the borders of its fellow compact members, Arizona, and North and South Dakota, which thought they had a deal with the federal government. The losers are all Americans who believe the President and the executive branch should uphold federal law, not ignore it and obstruct it for the sake of campaign contributions. The GAO states that several reasons are behind the rest of the states giving up on siting new waste disposal facilities. Public and political opposition is cited as the strongest prohibiting factor. Another reason is that, for the time being, states have access to a disposal facility at Barnwell in South Carolina, Richland in Washington State and Envirocare in Utah. A very positive reason cited is the reduction in the volume of low-level waste that is being generated, with waste management and treatment practices including compaction and incineration. However, the report cautions, ``Within 10 years, waste generators in the 41 states that do not have access to the Richland disposal facility may once again be without access to disposal capacity for much of their low-level radioactive wastes.'' Barnwell could decide to close or curtail access as early as 2000, and, at best, will only be open until 2010. The Utah facility disposes of wastes that are only slightly contaminated with radioactivity and thus is not available for all storage. In ten years states will be searching for storage as well as disposal. That storage will be near every university, pharmaceutical company, hospital, research facility or nuclear power plant. It may be down the street from you or within your city limits. And we have the Clinton administration to thank for bringing the materials into our communities like a quiet Trojan horse instead of working with states to establish a secure waste facility. Let's hope nothing ever opens the belly of the beast accidentally.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, my purpose in coming to the floor today is to tell you about an extraordinary Alaskan family. And to pay tribute to a mother who took from her immigrant heritage and from her adopted Alaskan home, the courage and tenacity to excel at a time when successful women were not the norm and too often uncelebrated. Her name is Mary Mikami Rouse. She died August 7th at the age of 87. Her story begins in Japan with the arrival of a fifth son in the Mikami family in 1864. Shortly after the birth of Mary's father, Goro Mikami, Japan began a period of social and political revolution and tempestuous change. The Shogunate lost power and Japan's imperial house was restored to a position of prestige and authority. The feudal system was eroding and there was a remarkable degree of westernization in all areas of Japanese life. Goro Mikami's father was a vassal of the Shogun, an admiral who was ultimately responsible for a navy failure that contributed to the subsequent loss of power by the Shogun. His sense of honor demanded he commit seppuku, or suicide for that loss. Fortuitously, the emperor stopped him from that action, pardoned him and made him the head of the country's new naval academy. In that position he got to know a number of American naval officers. As the fifth son to a family that was Samurai, or part of the aristocracy, Goro Mikami made a decision that reflected the changing times in which he found himself. He rebelled against an arranged marriage that was in the offing and he and a friend, who were studying in Tokyo around 1885, decided to head for the American West. Plans went awry and the friend stayed behind, but Mikami took the ship to a new life. He settled in San Francisco where at some point he attended the University of California at Berkeley to learn English. Two of his brothers went on to serve in Japan's diplomatic corps. The family name was Kondo, Goro was given the last name of Mikami in order to rescue a branch of the family that was dying out--not unusual in Japanese culture. Rumor says Mikami was drawn to the goldfields in Alaska, and there is some evidence he may have worked as a civilian aboard a U.S. Coast Guard Cutter. By this time, he had Americanized his name from Goro to George. But whatever his adventures, Mikami made a monumental decision in 1910, to take a trip back to Japan. His school friend had become a famous lawyer in the intervening years, and put together a huge homecoming for Mikami. At the homecoming events he met Mine Morioka, who had served as a nurse in the Russian Japanese War. They married and returned to the States in 1911, this time to Seattle. In 1912, Mary Mikami was born. About 1915, the family, including Mary's younger sister Alice, moved to Seward, Alaska. It appears George found work on the Alaskan railroad then being constructed between Seward and Anchorage. That same year, Mary's brother Harry was born. By 1918, the family had moved on to Anchorage where they opened George's Tailor Shop on Fourth avenue between ``B'' and ``C" Streets. Flora was born in 1919, and the family was complete. The Mikamis were either the first or one of the first Japanese families to settle in Anchorage. Prior to the 1940s, Anchorage's population never moved above 2,000. Alaska was still a territory and not a stopping ground for the faint of heart. It was peopled with pioneers and adventurers seeking wealth, anonymity or a new way of life. The Mikami family persevered and prospered in this still rough and tumble atmosphere. They met the challenges of a new business, a young family, assimilating into a different culture and mastering a new language. The second daughter Alice Mikami Snodgrass, who still lives in Palmer, Alaska, remembers her mother as a strict disciplinarian. She recalls the lure of swing-sets and seesaws and clamoring friends, while her mother kept the Mikami kids inside until they finished their schoolwork. Even in summer, there were sums to do and chores before play. In Japanese tradition, children were kept at home until they were five and then sent to school. Up to that point, the Mikami children spoke Japanese. Mary's relatives explain that she was highly traumatized when she entered school and realized she had to learn English. But Mary's mother's dedication to her children's scholarship resulted in all four children being named valedictorian of their respective graduating classes in Anchorage's public high school. Mary Mikami took the honors first and subsequently attended the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines in Fairbanks. She graduated with highest honors in 1934. The next year the College was renamed the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Her sister Alice recalls that Doctor Charles E. Bunnell, the first President of the University, at the time literally came to the towns, visited with the families, and recruited students by bringing along a University basketball team to play the local high school and community teams. After graduating, Mary joined an anthropological expedition jointly sponsored by the college and the Department of the Interior to St. Lawrence Island, located in the windswept Bering Sea between Alaska and Siberia. The expedition studied Alaskan prehistory. She was the only woman on the team; another team member, Roland Snodgrass, was to become her brother-in-law. After the expedition, she went to work for the University of Alaska Museum and was considering graduate school, perhaps at Columbia University. Instead, she met Froelich G. Rainey, a Yale graduate who became the head of the Museum. He influenced her to go to Yale instead and helped her make connections there. The intrepid Mary left Alaska for the first time in her young life and took the steamer to Seattle and then the train across country to a different challenge--a new world. Like her mother and father before her, she entered a new life with few connections to the past, and no one to greet her and ease the transition. She adapted and continued her success. She met and married fellow graduate student Irving Rouse. Both received Ph.D's and remained at Yale for lifelong careers of learning and teaching. Mary Mikami Rouse was a visiting lecturer, an editor of translations, instruction assistant at the Institute of Oriental Languages and a research assistant. She also served as an editorial assistant for American Antiquity, Journal of the Society for American Archaeology. Her husband, now retired, was the editor of that journal and is a well known anthropologist specializing in the Caribbean. Back in Alaska, her brother and sisters followed her to the University of Alaska and brother Harry also received a Ph.D from Yale. Sister Alice married Roland Snodgrass who later served as Director of the Division of Agriculture in Gov. Walter Hickel's first administration. Their son Jack is an attorney in Palmer. Mary's youngest sister, Flora Mikami Newcomb lives in Vancouver, B.C. Her brother, Harry, is deceased. The elder Mikamis sold the tailor shop and retired to Los Angeles just before World War II. Instead of the surcease they sought in retirement, they were moved to a Japanese internment camp in Arizona--a fate the four children escaped. In honor of their parents, the four Mikami children established the Mikami Scholarship at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and it is available today to any sophomore or junior student. Mary and Irving Rouse were the parents of two boys, Peter M. Rouse of Washington, D.C. and David C. Rouse of Philadelphia. David is a landscape architect and urban designer. In this body, we are most familiar with Pete Rouse, who many of you will recognize as the Chief of Staff to our esteemed Minority Leader Tom Daschle. Mary may have been as stern about studies as was her mother because Pete has a B. A. from Colby College, an M.A. from the London School of Economics and an M. A. from Harvard University. In the mid-1970s, Pete and Tom Daschle were both legislative assistants to Sen. James Abourezk, D-S.D. While at the Kennedy School at Harvard, Pete became friends with an Alaskan named Terry Miller, who was to become an Alaskan Lt. Governor. In 1979, Miller asked Pete to come to Alaska and work for him in the State House, reestablishing Pete's family ties with the state. The winds of political fortune soon brought him back to Capitol Hill and Chief-of-Staff positions with Representative Richard Durbin, Representative Thomas Daschle and then Senator Daschle. But Pete never forgot Alaska and his many friends there. His continuing efforts and interest in our State are greatly appreciated. Mary Mikami's life was an American success story. Hers was an example of achievement against great odds. She honored both of her cultures and her family. She was a combination of Samurai pride, Alaskan fortitude and New England grit. Mary was her own woman before anyone had heard the term ``women's liberation''. She was also a lifelong Democrat, and I'm sure was always very proud of the path her son has followed. Today, I join my colleagues in expressing condolences to the family and friends of Mary Mikami Rouse. Alaska is proud to claim her as one of its pioneers.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that a legislative hearing has been scheduled before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on S. 882, a bill to strengthen provisions in the Energy Policy Act of 1992 and the Federal Nonnuclear Energy Research and Development Act of 1974 with respect to potential Climate Change. The hearing will take place on Tuesday, October 26, 1999 at 9:30 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send two copies of their testimony to the Subcommittee on Energy Research, Development, Production and Regulation, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, 364 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, 20510-6150. For further information, please call Kristin Phillips, Staff Assistant or Colleen Deegan, Counsel.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, two years ago I rose to highlight a publication of the University of Alaska, Anchorage when it was honored as ``one of the nation's best literary magazines.'' Today, I rise to again call the Senate's attention to the continuing praise for the Alaska Quarterly Review. Specifically, I rise to praise its latest issue, Alaska Native Writers, Storytellers & Orators, The Expanded Edition. The literary journal, now in its 18th year, for its summer-fall issue has published a 400-page volume including more than 80 original works, many by Alaska Natives. The volume could win my praise simply for taking the step of publishing 15 classic Native stories in both English and in traditional Alaska Native languages. You see, in June 1991, I introduced the Alaska Native Languages Preservation Act (S. 1595). The bill, which became law in 1992 and was implemented in 1994, was designed to provide grants to Alaska Native groups and media for language preservation projects, including research, preservation and instruction to teach Alaska's traditional languages to younger Natives. There are 20 original Native languages spoken in Alaska--more than 155 nationwide--but only two of them, Siberian Yup'ik and Central Yup'ik are healthy.'' That means they continue to be spoken by Native children. Thus 18 of the Alaska Native languages face extinction by 2055, unless more is done to preserve them. For example, only a single speaker of Eyak, a language spoken only in the Copper River Delta in Alaska, is still alive to pass the unique sounds of the language on to new speakers. Thus the new effort by the review's Executive Editor and Founding Editor Ronald Spatz of Anchorage would win my praise simply because it has published stories in Eyak, Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Ugangan, Alutiiq, Central Yup'ik, St. Lawrence Island Yup'ik, Inupiaq and Dena'ina. But the issue has done much more for classic and modern literature and for the preservation of Alaska's Native history and traditions. Through its stories, short stories, oral histories, folk tales and poems, the literary magazine has taken a giant step to convey Alaska's rich and diverse Native cultures. It pays tribute to the Native language speakers and tradition bearers that keep their cultures alive through their stories and through their words. And over the years Alaskans have learned that one of the best ways to protect the social fabric of Native Alaskans is to protect their culture, thus maintaining Native residents' pride in their history and their heritage. Kirkus Reviews, in its Aug. 1, 1999 review of the journal called it, ``quite a tidy little omnibus of poems, oral histories, folk tales and stories by Native Alaskans. . . . Sociologists and folklorists will be particularly grateful for the bibliography and source notations, and those unfamiliar with Alaskan culture, will find in the very extensive commentaries a useful orientation to what remains a largely unknown world. . . . offering as they do a glimpse into the history of our Last Frontier.'' This is certainly not the first time that the review has won literary praise. Since its inception at the Anchorage campus of the University of Alaska in 1982, the Alaska Quarterly Review (AQR) has served as an instrument to give voice to Alaska writers and poets, while also publishing the best of material from non-Alaskan authors. While the AQR is firmly rooted in Alaska, it maintains a national perspective-- bridging the distance between the literary centers and Alaska, while also sharing an Alaskan perspective. This balanced presentation of views has earned AQR local, regional and national/international recognition over the years. In June 1997 the Washington Post book review section, Book World, called it ``one of the nation's best literary magazines.'' Bill Katz in the Library Journal said ``AQR is highly recommended and deserves applause.'' While Patrick Parks in the Literary Magazine Review said, ``It is an impressive publication, comprising as diverse and rewarding an aggregation of work as a reader is likely to find in any literary journal.'' The review has won a host of national awards including a 1999 Beacon Best award, a 1997 O. Henry Award, a 1996 award from Scribner for Best American Poetry, and the 1995 Andres Berger Award from Northwest Writers Inc., plus literally a dozen other awards and mentions. I rise today to honor the publication, not just because of its many awards, but because many Alaskans still do not understand or appreciate the breadth and scope of the publication and how important it has become as a gateway for Alaskan authors to win recognition from a wider literary audience. I want to thank the University of Alaska Board of Regents and the leadership of the University of Alaska Anchorage for supporting the publication. Alaska's university system continues to face difficult economic times because of falling Alaska State revenues. It has taken a tremendous commitment to academic excellence to continue the funding necessary to permit the review to be a quality publication and artistic success. The University deserves great credit for its efforts at promoting the publication in these difficult financial times. It is because of the need for more revenues for the University to permit it to reach the highest level of greatness that I continue to press for the University to finally gain its full land-grant entitlement that it should have received at its founding. The University of Alaska Land Grant Bill, still pending full Senate consideration, would greatly help the University gain the economic means to support such important endeavors. But more on that at another time. I also want to thank and again publicly recognize the work of Mr. Spatz. A recent recipient of the 1999 Edith R. Bullock Award for Excellence--the most prestigious award bestowed by the University of Alaska Foundation, Mr. Spatz is a professor and chair of the University of Alaska Anchorage's Department of Creative Writing and Literary Arts and has been involved with the UAA's honors program. A film maker and writer, besides editor, Mr. Spatz wrote a series of illuminating notes in the current volume. He was joined in shaping it by Contributing Editors Jeane Breinig, assistant professor of English at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and by Patricia Partnow, vice president of Education at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. A final thank you must be provided to the National Endowment for the Arts, which provided a Heritage and Preservation Grant that helped pay the costs of publication of the expanded edition. Mr. President, Alaska, in fact all of America, is far richer artistically because of the review's presence. It truly is a window for Americans to view society in Alaska at the close of the 20th Century, and a worthy stage for the serious works of all writers as we enter the 21th Century. That is particularly the case with this edition. I commend it and its contributors for its many achievements, and I know all members of the U.S. Senate join me in wishing it continued success.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I would like to take this time to pay tribute to the men of Air Force Rescue 470, from the 210th Rescue Squadron in the Alaska Air National Guard. These five men, stationed at Kulis Air National Guard Base in Anchorage, Alaska, recently received the Mackay Trophy. The Mackay Trophy is given each year to the person or crew in the United States Air Force for what is considered the most meritorious flight of the year. The crew of Air Force Rescue 470 certainly deserve this prestigious award. Let me tell you a little bit about the rescue they performed which led to this recognition. On May 27, 1998, six people, including two small children, flying in the Tordrillo Mountains, suddenly crashed into a glacier about 10,500 feet above sea level. These people were trapped in their plane, with darkness coming and the temperature dropping. Because they were not dressed for the extreme cold that would come, these six people would surely not survive the night. Fortunately for them, they had some of the best trained, best equipped, and bravest men were on the way to the crash site. This was not an easy rescue by any means. It was already extremely cold, visibility was only \1/8\ of a mile, the wind was anywhere between ten and forty knots, and the crashed plane was high up the mountain. Normally any one of these factors would make a rescue attempt extremely risky. But Air Force Rescue 470 had to contend with all sorts of deterrents in order to rescue these people before nightfall came. The crew had to fly up to an altitude of over 12,000 feet because of the visibility problem. The thin air made it difficult for the helicopter blades to keep the aircraft aloft and for the men to breathe. As soon as a hole in the clouds appeared, they dove down into the mountainous terrain to land. The weather was only getting worse, and the pararescuers had only fifty minutes, because of the limited fuel supply, to pry open the wreckage of the downed plane, get everyone out, and get them all safely back to the helicopter, six hundred feet away. All six lives were saved. Mr. President, I know that the crew of Air Force Rescue 470 were simply happy to be serving their country on this day back in May of 1998. I also know that they have made countless other rescues, just as have other Rescue units around the country. But I am especially proud that these fine young men of the Alaska Air National Guard were chosen for the Mackay Trophy. So to Lieutenant Colonel John Jacobs, the pilot, First Lieutenant Thaddeus Stolar, the copilot, Master Sergeant Scott Hamilton, Master Sergeant Steve Daigle, and Technical Sergeant Greg Hopkins, the pararescuers, I congratulate you. Both Alaska and the nation thank you for your continued efforts to save lives.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I have listened to the debate with a little frustration, as I am sure my colleagues have, regarding the emotional arguments prevailing on an issue that fails to give disclosure to the public on what this issue is all about. The Hutchison moratorium amendment keeps the MMS from spending money for 1 year to implement a new rule that amounts to another tax, a value-added tax, on oil produced in the United States on Federal leases. What they don't say in the debate is who pays this additional tax. It is the American consumer, the taxpayer, the public. Bureaucrats don't have the right to unilaterally establish a tax. That is just what this proposal does. That is a right that is reserved in the Constitution, by the Constitution to this Congress. Existing law says royalties should be collected at the lease, not after value has been added downstream as the rule proposed by Department of Interior would do. This MMS rule, for the first time in history, embraces a value-added tax concept to oil valuation. There is little mention about the energy security interests of this country. We are now dependent upon imported oil. Imported oil is the No. 1 contributor to our trade deficit. The domestic oil industry is in tough shape. In 1973, during the oil embargo, we imported 36 percent of our oil. Today, we import 56 percent. The Department of Energy says that figure will go up to the 63- to 64-percent area by the years 2005, 2006, and 2007, and over 55,000 American jobs have been lost in the last 2 years in the oil industry, five times the number in the steel industry. The MMS rule drives U.S. jobs overseas, increases our trade deficit, and makes America more dependent on one area of the world that is very volatile, the Mideast. This moratorium by the Senator from Texas has been in place for 2 years. The press has reported two Government employees have been paid $350,000 each from a group associated with the trial lawyers as an award for pushing for the new rule which benefits--benefits whom? It doesn't benefit the taxpayer or the consumer; it benefits the lawyers. The Department of the Interior inspector general and Justice Department are investigating. Something is rotten around here. It is not in Denmark. It has something to do with the process. This has the effect of turning our Government regulation over to the highest bidder. No rule tainted by payoffs to the rulemakers should be tolerated. It is interesting to note, as the Senator from Texas has, they say they want to simplify a process. The chart today reminds me of the chart Senator Specter presented to this body describing the simplified health care that had been proposed by the First Lady and the administration. Again, look at this chart. If that is a simplified chart on the workable manner in which MMS proposes a value-added method for determining the appropriate royalty for oil, you and I both know that won't hold water. This is a cancer within Government. We talk about whistleblowers and those who are supporting the proposed MMS gasoline and heating oil tax which Senator Hutchison's amendment postpones for 1 year. When they think about a whistleblower, most people think of something someone sees is wrong, who blows a whistle to draw attention. The Federal Government has laws on the books to protect whistleblowers who come forward to report fraud and abuse. Let's look at this case. This case is a little different. Two Federal employees, one working for the Department of the Interior and the other working for the Department of Energy--the two Departments of jurisdiction; these are supposed to be objective people--worked behind the scenes and pushed for the MMS rule change. They were paid $350,000 each on September 13, 1999 as rewards for their work. There is a copy of the check. The point of this is, they were paid by a self-described public interest group which has about 200 members. This group, the Project On Government Oversight, or POGO, has rather curious ties to law firms which have made millions of dollars from suing oil companies over oil royalties. Make no mistake about who pays: The public. As an example, POGO's board of directors has included lawyers who have worked directly on these cases for years. The City of Long Beach, CA, lost the most recent case. An attorney for the city said they spent about $100 million on the case. That is $100 million that could have been spent on education and was spent on lawyers instead. The Department of the Interior is investigating, but it is illegal for Federal employees to be paid for pursuing changes to Federal regulations by those who benefit from such changes. Our Secretary of the Interior, what has he done? He has done nothing. The Interior Department had nothing to do with it. The Hutchison amendment should be adopted to give time to work on a fair and simple regulation to States, Federal lessees, and taxpayers. That chart is not a simplification. I commend my colleague for her effort to expose the truth behind the fiction we have heard so much about today. I yield the floor.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise in support of the conference report on the Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2000. The conference report includes provisions to address the chronic security problems at the Department of Energy nuclear weapons laboratories. We need to make major organizational changes to the Department of Energy in order to protect the national security--to keep our nuclear secrets from falling into the wrong hands. There is no question that the U.S. has suffered a major loss of our nuclear secrets. According to the House Select Committee's report, the Chinese have succeeded in stealing critical information on all of our most advanced nuclear weapons. I repeat: The House report shows that we lost critical information on all of our advanced nuclear weapons! That is unacceptable! The extensive Senate hearing record--in both open and closed meetings held by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Armed Services Committee, the Intelligence Committee and the Governmental Affairs Committee--makes clear that we lost these secrets due to poor management by the top levels of the Department of Energy--which led to lax security and a lack of accountability and responsibility. Let me quote from the report of the President's foreign intelligence advisory board--the Rudman report--titled ``Science at its best: Security at its worst.'' Organizational disarray, managerial neglect, and a culture of arrogance--both at DOE headquarters and the labs themselves--conspired to create an espionage scandal waiting to happen. The Department of Energy is a dysfunctional bureaucracy that has proven it is incapable of reforming itself. Accountability at DOE has been spread so thinly and erratically that it is now almost impossible to find. Never have the members of the Special Investigative Panel witnessed a bureaucratic culture so thoroughly saturated with cynicism and disregard for authority. Never before has this panel found such a cavalier attitude toward one of the most serious responsibilities in the federal government--control of the design information relating to nuclear weapons. Never before has the panel found an agency with the bureaucratic insolence to dispute, delay, and resist implementation of a Presidential directive on security. I ask unanimous consent that additional excerpts from the Rudman report be printed in the Record following my statement.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Despite this damming criticism by the President's own foreign intelligence advisory board to date not a single high level bureaucrat at DOE--or the FBI or the Justice Department, for that matter--has been removed, demoted or disciplined over this massive failure. Only a very few low-level DOE employees have suffered-- including the person who first blew the whistle. The problem is clear. The question is: Do we want this to continue, or are we going to fix the problem? One thing we can not discuss in open session, is the extent of this problem. We can say that this problem is much more extensive than has been reported. We can also say that it is a continuing problem. And we can say that it is not just espionage by China, it is also espionage by other countries that we must stop. The Administration is against fixing the problem; DOE Secretary Richardson is opposed to the provisions Conference Report. When this was last debated in the Senate, Secretary Richardson sent two letters threatening veto by the President--and he continues to voice his opposition to this legislation. However, the President's own independent and nonpartisan Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board agrees with our legislative solution--creating a semi-autonomous agency within DOE is the way to fix the problem. Again, let me quote from the Rudman report: The panel is convinced that real and lasting security and counterintelligence reform at the weapons labs is simply unworkable within DOE's current structure and culture. To achieve the kind of protection that these sensitive labs must have, they and their functions must have their own autonomous operational structure free of all the other obligations imposed by DOE management. Under the current DOE organization structure everyone is in charge, but no one is responsible--no one is accountable. This legislation changes that. This legislation establishes accountability and responsibility at the Department of Energy. It does so by establishing a new semi-autonomous ``National Nuclear Security Administration'' inside the Department of Energy. The Nuclear Security Administration will be a self-contained organization that will be fully in charge of all aspects of our nuclear weapons program--and fully accountable. This new agency will be headed up by a new Under Secretary of Energy. The new Under Secretary will be responsible for all aspects of our nuclear weapons program, including the DOE weapons labs. If there is a problem in the future we will know who to point the finger at--a single agency with a single person heading it in charge of all aspects of the nuclear weapons program. As further evidence for the need for this legislation, I would like to quote the testimony of Mr. Vic Reis, the former Assistant Secretary of Energy for Defense Programs, just before he was forced out by Secretary Richardson for disagreeing with the Secretary's position on the need to create a semi-autonomous agency. Mr. Reis said: You may recall at a previous hearing, Mr. Chairman, you noticed me in the audience and you asked for my opinion as to who, or what was to blame for the security issues at the national laboratories. I responded that I didn't think you would find any one individual to blame, but that the organizational structure of the DOE was so flawed that security lapses are almost inevitable. The root cause of the difficulties at DOE is simply that DOE has too many disparate missions to be managed effectively as a coherent organization. The price of gasoline, refrigerator standards, Quarks, nuclear cleanup and nuclear weapons just don't come together naturally. Because of all this multilayered cross-cutting, there is no one accountable for the operation of any part of the organization except the Secretary, and no Secretary has the time to lead the whole thing effectively. By setting up a semi-autonomous agency, many of these problems go away. The way to stop espionage at the DOE laboratories then is to vote for the conference report. Before I yield the floor I want to mention one element of DOE's defense programs that we do not reorganize, although it is made part of the new National Nuclear Security Administration. That is the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. The Conference report language was very carefully and specifically crafted to ensure that the organization, responsibilities and authorities of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program are not diminished or otherwise compromised. The Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, referred to as ``Naval Reactors'' in the Department of Energy, has long been a model of excellence, efficiency and integrity. Naval Reactors has provided safe, reliable, long-lived and militarily-effective nuclear propulsion plants for our Nation since U.S.S. Nautilus went to sea in 1955. These nuclear propulsion plants are found in our largest ships, the Nimitz class nuclear aircraft carriers with over 5,500 personnel on board. They are also found in one of our smallest ships, the NR-1 deep- submergence research and ocean engineering vehicle with a crew of only five to ten. These nuclear propulsion plants also are crucial to the ability of our Nation's exceptional ballistic missile and attack submarine fleets to perform their national security missions. Under the conference report, Naval Reactors will continue to maintain clear, total responsibility and accountability for all aspects of Naval nuclear propulsion, including design, construction, operation, operator training, maintenance, refueling, and ultimate disposal, plus associated radiological control, safety, environmental and health matters, and program administration. The Program's structure will continue to include roles within both the Navy and the DOE, with direct access to the Secretaries of Navy and Energy. The success of the Program is due in part to its simple, enduring, and focused structure set forth in Public Law 98-525, which is not changed by the Conference Report. Also of great importance are the Program's clear and simplified lines of authority, and the culture of excellence in technical work, as well as managerial, fiscal, and security matters. These too are unaffected by the Conference Report. With fifty-one years of unparalleled success, Naval Reactors has amassed a record that reflects the wisdom of its structure, policies, and practices. Naval nuclear propulsion plants have safely steamed over 117 million miles--over 5,000 reactor-years of safe operations. Moreover, there has never been a naval reactor accident, or any release of radioactivity that has had a significant effect on the public or environment. For these reasons, the Conference Report makes it clear that this exceptional national asset will in no way be hindered from maintaining its record of excellence. The language creating the new National Nuclear Security Administration in the Department of Energy in no way changes the management or operations of Naval Reactors. I am confident Naval Reactors will remain a technical organization unequaled in accomplishment throughout the world, and a crown jewel in our Nation's security. Exhibit 1 Seclected excerpts from the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board report: Science at its Best; Security at its Worst: A Report on Security Problems at the U.S. Department of Energy. findings (pp. 1-6) As the repository of America's most advanced know-how in nuclear and related armaments and the home of some of America's finest scientific minds, these labs have been and will continue to be a major target of foreign intelligence services, friendly as well as hostile. p.1 More than 25 years worth or reports, studies and formal inquiries--by executive branch agencies, Congress, independent panels, and even DOE itself--have identified a multitude of chronic security and counterintelligence problems at all of the weapons labs. p.2 --Critical security flaws . . . have been cited for immediate attention and resolution . . . over and over and over . . . ad nauseam. The open-source information alone on the weapons laboratories overwhelmingly supports a troubling conclusion: their security and counterintelligence operations have been seriously hobbled and relegated to low-priority status for decades. p.2 --The DOE and its weapons labs have been Pollyannaish. The predominant attitude toward security and counterintelligence among many DOE and lab managers has ranged from half-hearted, grudging accommodation to smug disregard. Thus the panel is convinced that the potential for major leaks and thefts of sensitive information and material has been substantial. Organizational disarray, managerial neglect, and a culture of arrogance--both at DOE headquarters and the labs themselves--conspired to create an espionage scandal waiting to happen. pp.2-3 Among the defects this panel found: Inefficient personnel clearance programs. Loosely controlled and casually monitored programs for thousands of unauthorized foreign scientists and assignees. Feckless systems for control of classified documents, which periodically resulted in thousands of documents being declared lost. Counterintelligence programs with part-time CI officers, who often operated with little experience, minimal budgets, and employed little more than crude ``awareness'' briefings of foreign threats and perfunctory and sporadic debriefings of scientists. . . A lab security management reporting system that led everywhere but to responsible authority. Computer security methods that were naive at best and dangerously irresponsible at worst. --DOE has had a dysfunctional management structure and culture that only occasionally gave proper credence to the need for rigorous security and counterintelligence programs at the weapons labs. For starters, there has been a persisting lack of real leadership and effective management at DOE. The nature of the intelligence-gathering methods used by the People's Republic of China poses a special challenge to the U.S. in general and the weapons labs in particular. p.3 Despite widely publicized assertions of wholesale losses of nuclear weapons technology from specific laboratories to particular nations, the factual record in the majority of cases regarding the DOE weapons laboratories supports plausible inferences--but not irrefutable proof--about the source and scope of espionage and the channels through which recipient nations received information. pp.3-4 --The actual damage done to U.S. security interests is, at the least, currently unknown; at worst, it may be unknowable. The Department of Energy is a dysfunctional bureaucracy that has proven it is incapable of reforming itself. p.4 --Accountability at DOE has been spread so thinly and erratically that it is now almost impossible to find. Reorganization is clearly warranted to resolve that 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. p.4 --Convoluted, confusing, and often contradictory reporting channels make the relationship between DOE headquarters and the labs, in particular, tense, internecine, and chaotic. The criteria for the selection of Energy Secretaries have been inconsistent in the past. Regardless of the outcome of ongoing or contemplated reforms, the minimum qualifications for an Energy Secretary should include experience in not only energy and scientific issues, but national security and intelligence issues as well. p. 5 DOE cannot be fixed with a single legislative act: management must follow mandate. The research functions of the labs are vital to the nation's long term interest, and instituting effective gates between weapons and nonweapons research functions will require both disinterested scientific expertise, judicious decision making, and considerable political finesse. p. 5 --Thus both Congress and the Executive Branch . . . should be prepared to monitor the progress of the Department's reforms for years to come. The Foreign Visitor's and Assignments Program has been and should continue to be a valuable contribution to the scientific and technological progress of the nation. p. 5 --That said, DOE clearly requires measures to ensure that legitimate use of the research laboratories for scientific collaboration is not an open door to foreign espionage agents. In commenting on security issues at DOE, we believe that both Congressional and Executive branch leaders have resorted to simplification and hyperbole in the past few months. The panel found neither the dramatic damage assessments nor the categorical reassurances of the Department's advocates to be wholly substantiated. pp. 5-6 --However, the Board is extremely skeptical that any reform effort, no matter how well-intentioned, well-designed, and effectively applied, will gain more than a toehold at DOE, given its labyrinthine management structure, fractious and arrogant culture, and the fast-approaching reality of another transition in DOE leadership. Thus we believe that he has overstated the case when he asserts, as he did several weeks ago, that ``Americans can be reassured: our nation's nuclear secrets are, today, safe and secure.'' Fundamental change in DOE's institutional culture-- including the ingrained attitudes toward security among personnel of the weapons laboratories--will be just as important as organizational redesign. p. 6 --Never have the members of the Special Investigative Panel witnessed a bureaucratic culture so thoroughly saturated with cynicism and disregard for authority. Never before has this panel found such a cavalier attitude toward one of the most serious responsibilities in the federal government--control of the design information relating to nuclear weapons. Particularly egregious have been the failures to enforce cyber-security measures to protect and control important nuclear weapons design information. Never before has the panel found an agency with the bureaucratic insolence to dispute, delay, and resist implementation of a Presidential directive on security, as DOE's bureaucracy tried to do with the Presidential Decision Directive No. 61 in February 1998. The best nuclear weapons expertise in the U.S. government resides at the national weapons labs, and this asset should be better used by the intelligence community. p. 6 reorganization--pp. 43-52 The panel is convinced that real and lasting security and counterintelligence reform at the weapons labs is simply unworkable within DOE's current structure and culture. To achieve the kind of protection that these sensitive labs must have, they and their functions must have their own autonomous operational structure free of all the other obligations imposed by DOE management. We strongly believe that this cleaving can be best achieved by constituting a new government agency that is far more mission-focused and bureaucratically streamlined than its antecedent, and devoted principally to nuclear weapons and national security matters. p. 46 The agency can be constructed in one of two ways. It could remain an element of DOE but become semi-autonomous--by that we mean strictly segregated from the rest of the Department. This would be accomplished by having the agency director report only to the Secretary of Energy. The agency directorship also could be ``dual-hatted'' as an Under Secretary, thereby investing it with extra bureaucratic clout both inside and outside the Department. p. 46 Regardless of the mold in which this agency is cast, it must have staffing and support functions that are autonomous from the remaining operations at DOE. p. 46 To ensure its long-term success, this new agency must be established by statute. p. 47 Whichever solution Congress enacts, we do feel strongly that the new agency never should be subordinated to the Defense Department. p. 47 Specifically, we recommend that the Congress pass and the President sign legislation that: pp. 47-49 --Creates a new, semi-autonomous Agency for Nuclear Stewardship (ANS), whose Director will report directly to the Secretary of Energy. --Streamlines the ANS/Weapons Lab management structure by abolishing ties between the weapons labs and all DOE regional, field and site offices, and all contractor intermediaries. --Mandates that the Director/ANS be appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate and, ideally, have an extensive background in national security, organizational management, and appropriate technical fields. --Stems the historical ``revolving door'' and management expertise problems at DOE. . . . --Ensures effective administration of safeguards, security, and counterintelligence at all the weapons labs and plants by creating a coherent security/CI structure within the new agency. --Abolishes the Office of Energy Intelligence. --Shifts the balance of analytic billets . . . to bolster intelligence community technical expertise on nuclear matters.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I would like to announce that on Thursday, September 23rd, the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources will hold an oversight hearing titled, ``Y2K--Will The Lights Go Out?'' The purpose of the hearing is to explore the potential consequences of the year 2000 computer problem to the Nation's supply of electricity. The hearing will be held at 9:30 a.m. in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. Those who wish further information may write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, this morning I had an opportunity to meet with the Governor of Puerto Rico, the Honorable Pedro Rosello. The purpose was to discuss a variety of issues affecting our relationship with Puerto Rico. The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which I chair, has the responsibility for the territories and the freely associated States of the United States, of which Puerto Rico is one. That responsibility derives from the plenary authority of the Federal Government over the territories, which is placed in the Congress under article IV of the Constitution. I take that responsibility very seriously. My State was a territory until 1959. I truly remember the days when my State was totally dependent on the goodwill of the Congress. Sometimes that goodwill was somewhat lacking. We were American citizens. We did not enjoy the right to vote. We had no representation in Congress. We were subject to Federal income tax. Some Alaskans thought they would feel good about filing under protest and would write that across their income tax return, but that is about the extent of the satisfaction they got. In any event, I do have a certain sensitivity for the American people of Puerto Rico. I think it is fair to remind my colleagues that Congress is vested with the power to admit States and the power to dispose of the territory status of those areas within the United States. This is one of the fundamental authorities that affect the nature of our society and the nature of our Government. Thirty-seven times we have acted to admit new States to the Union. Once we acted to grant independence. In the interim, we have governed areas that expanded this Nation from Thirteen Original Colonies to a country that stretches from the Virgin Islands to Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and from Maine to Alaska to American Samoa in the South Pacific. We have tried, perhaps not always successfully, to be responsive to the needs and aspirations of the residents of the territories. Coming from a former territory, I understand the unhappiness of living in territorial status subject to decisions made in Washington. As a consequence, I try to be fair and sensitive and sympathetic to the aspirations and concerns of the people of Puerto Rico, the American people of Puerto Rico, and whether a continuing quest for self- determination, which I happen to believe is appropriate and an obligation of this Congress, is something that is still unresolved with regard to the Americans and the people of Puerto Rico. Perhaps a little history might be helpful on this. Referring to my own State, we were purchased for $7.2 million in 1867 from Russia with citizenship except for the ``uncivilized native tribes.'' Full citizenship to all residents was not enacted until 1915. Alaska was then subject to military government for 17 years. When we requested an extension of the homestead laws in order to settle a territory, our requests were then ignored by Washington. The Organic Act of 1884 provided for civil government and an appointed Governor but did not provide for either a legislative assembly or a delegate to Congress. However, in 1906, 39 years after acquisition, we were finally granted a nonvoting delegate to Congress in the House of Representatives. In 1912, an Organic Act provided for a local legislature with limited authority subject to veto by an appointed Governor to the State of Alaska, appointed by the President with the oversight of Congress. In some respects Puerto Rico obtained greater local self-government faster than we did in Alaska. In 1950, Puerto Rico had an elective Governor and Constitution while Alaska was still subject to appointed officials. While we now have an elected Governor and Statehood, we are still subject to appointed officials, some of whom appear to think that Statehood and federalism are arcane and outdated concepts--impediments to the achievement of their particular concept of public good. Mr. President, if that level of insensitivity to the needs and aspirations of local residents and the wishes of elected officials occurs in a State, you can imagine how the residents of a territory feel. That brings me to the subject of this legislation I introduced today. Vieques is a 33,000 acre island off the east coast of Puerto Rico, approximately 22 miles long by 6 miles wide. The federal government acquired \2/3\ of the island in 1941. The population of 9,400 resides in the west central area of the island, sandwiched between two military areas. The western portion of the island is used as a Navy Supply Depot with 102 magazines. The eastern portion contains a maneuvering area for amphibious/land training and a Live Impact Area that is part of the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility. Vieques is the only target range in the U.S. where aircrews drop live ordnance from tactical altitudes, above 18,000 feet. The facility also supports shore bombardment training with live ordnance. Although the civilian population resides about 8 miles from the Live Impact Area, relations have been tense for some time, as you might expect if your community was the recipient of regularly scheduled live exercises with live ammunition. You would keep one eye open at night. It finally happened on April 19, 1999. An F/A-18 from the JFK Battlegroup participating in live fire training as part of deployment preparations dropped two 500 pound bombs near an observation post within the Live Fire Impact area. A civilian contract security guard was unfortunately killed and four other personnel received minor injuries. While this is the only fatality to have occurred over the past sixty years, there have been several minor incidents within the Live Fire Impact area. The guard, David Sanes Rodriguez, was 35 and one of 17 siblings who grew up in the La Mina sector of Vieques. Mr. President, you have heard me complain any number of times about the abuse that my constituents must endure from disinterred federal bureaucracy. We are denied the ability to develop our resources. We cannot obtain rights-of-way to connect our towns and villages. We cannot connect by road, by rail, or by wire. I will not go through how many of my constituents have died because we cannot obtain a simple right-of-way through a few miles of a wildlife refuge so they can obtain emergency medical treatment. This is the case in my State. At least the federal government is not dropping live ordnance on my constituents. I fully understand the reasons why the Governor and virtually everyone in Puerto Rico has called for an end to the use of Vieques as a target range. I also understand that this would not happen if Puerto Rico were not a territory. I fully support the need for our armed services to train, deploy, and test weapons. But there are certain things you simply don't do in an inhabited area. I deeply regret that it took an accident to highlight this situation, but that is the case. For that reason, legislation I have introduced will amend the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act to transfer control over Vieques to the government of Puerto Rico for public purposes. The term ``public purpose'' is very broad and will include the same public benefit uses that we authorized for lands transferred to Guam several years ago. Finally, the day may come when Congress no longer exercises plenary authority over Puerto Rico but the Puerto Rican people will have determined their self-determination. Until that time, all of us have a responsibility to respond to the needs of our fellow citizens who reside there and in the other territories, as well as our own constituents. I hope my colleagues would join me in this amendment. I see no other Senators seeking recognition, so I yield the floor.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I commend my good friend and colleague, Senator Voinovich from Ohio, who I think has brought to the attention of this body in a timely manner a very appropriate and important issue; that is, the realization that the President is going to reject any proposal for a tax cut--and bring to the attention of this body the realization that, indeed, that accumulated debt of $5.6 trillion, which the Senator from Ohio referred to, is costing us interest. As the Senator from Ohio is well aware, I was in the banking business for about 25 years. People do not recognize the carrying charge. I think the figure that was used was $600 million per day. Interest is like the old saying of having a horse that eats while you sleep. It is ongoing. It doesn't take Saturdays or Sundays off. If one considers the significance of, I think the figure was 14 cents out of every dollar going for interest, one can quickly comprehend what we could do if we were free of that heavy obligation. I commend the Senator for bringing this matter to the attention of this body and assure him of my eagerness to work with him to bring about and resolve in a responsible manner a program to address the accumulated debt. As he has pointed out, there is an awful lot of procedure around here relative to the bookkeeping method of the Federal Government, which few people understand. Nevertheless, there is a harsh reality that we have a hard debt of $5.6 billion. We have an opportunity now with the Social Security surplus to address that debt. I agree with the Senator and his efforts to try to bring a consensus on this issue. I commend him highly. Let me assure the Senator of my willingness to work in that regard. (The remarks of Mr. Murkowski pertaining to the introduction of S. 1591 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. The Senator is correct. Authorization does exist to do this.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Natural gas is nearly everywhere in the United States and does not need to be imported. We have somewhere between 30 to 60 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in Alaska, which could replace a significant amount of the diesel fuel market, if the GTL process can be proved to be viable. I have been interested in securing funding a private-public partnership to study GTL's performance as fuel. The study will report on the following: (1) How important fuel characteristics affect the performance and emissions of different diesel engines; (2) Experimental performance of diesel engines burning fuels like GTL fuels; (3) Engine design modifications which enhance performance using such fuels; and (4) Chemistry of GTL production. I would ask if the subcommittee chairman is aware of the premise that GTL technology has in producing a cleaner burning fuel?

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I hope we can join together to work with the Department of Energy to find some funds within the Department to support this effort.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I thank my good friend. Being a member of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources the subcommittee chairman is well aware of Glacier Bay National Park. He is aware of it this year for some of the controversy that has been caused by the Park Service's attempts to prohibit commercial and subsistence fishing within the bounds of the park. However, there is an area that the local community, the Park Service, and the Alaska Congressional Delegation do want to work together on in the park--a new visitor facility. Glacier Bay National Park is one of Alaska's treasures. More than 350,000 visitors come to the park each year. Currently, there is no single place for them to go to learn about the park resources, native inhabitants, and spectacular beauty. The local native corporation has proposed a shared cost effort with the Park Service to build such a facility. Is the subcommittee chairman aware of this?

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I wonder if the Subcommittee chairman would be willing to discuss with myself and the senior senator from Alaska, the Chairman of the full committee on Appropriations certain issues regarding the Glacier Bay National Park Visitor Facility.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I understand that my colleague from Alaska wants to comment with me on Department of Energy funding for alternate fuels research.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, as the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations knows, the Environmental Protection Agency and the country have been constantly seeking cleaner-burning diesel fuel. In fact, the administration has already announced new, stricter emissions standards for heavy vehicles as an incentive to move to other technologies. Would the Senator agree that the answer to this issue lies partly in the engine design, but more importantly in the type of fuel we burn?

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to offer an amendment with Senator Lautenberg and 25 other Senators to provide $20 million for the stateside Land and Water Conservation Fund or LWCF matching grant program. Too often we forget that--in addition to a National Park System--we have national system of parks which includes tens of thousands of State and local parks. More than 37,000 of these State and local parks and recreation facilities have received a stateside LWCF matching grant, but there is a problem. The stateside LWCF program has been shut down because Congress hasn't funded it. Yet O.C.S. revenues currently are at $4 billion. Over 30 years ago, in a bipartisan effort, Congress created the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The LWCF is funded with Federal revenues from off-shore oil and gas leasing which now exceed $4 billion a year. LWCF money can be used for two purposes: (1) Acquisition of land by the four Federal land management agencies; and (2) matching grants to State and local governments for recreation facilities, parks, playgrounds, and campgrounds. The LWCF Act envisions a balance: between the Federal and State and local parks; between the needs of rural and urban populations; and between easterners and westerners. Mr. President, I now want to refer to a ``LWCF Authorization/ Appropriation'' chart. As this chart shows, the balance has been lost. FY1995 was the last year the LWCF stateside matching grant program was funded. In that year, over $600 million was requested and only $25 million was appropriated. Despite the past successes and growing demand, Washington pulled the rug out from under the stateside program. Four years ago, Congress and the administration zeroed out the stateside program. That was a serious mistake. Washington was being penny-wise and pound foolish. The promise to Americans set forth in the LWCF Act was broken. When the offshore oil leasing program began, a portion of the receipts were pledged to recreation and conservation of America's great outdoors. I see no reason not to meet that pledge. I see many reasons to keep it. As the chart shows, 2 years ago was a record year for the Land and Water Conservation Fund when over $900 million was appropriated. Out of the total, the Senate appropriated $100 million for the stateside matching grant program. Unfortunately, the good work of the Senate went for naught. This money was lost in conference. None of this money went to the stateside grant program. Every appropriated dollar went to Federal land acquisition and maintenance of Federal land. This year the mistake of closing down this program is being recognized. The administration requested $150 million for a State land conservation grants program and $50 million for open space planning grants to States and local governments as part of their Lands Legacy proposal. As Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I had to oppose the administration's proposal because these programs are not authorized by the LWCF Act. The President's Land Legacy proposal sought to fundamentally restructure the stateside matching grant program authorized by the LWCF Act. The LWCF stateside program is a formula grant program which provides monies to State and local communities for the planning, acquisition, and development of parks and recreation facilities. The President proposed to replace this program with a competitive grant program to the States for the purchase of land and open space planning. This proposal would have changed the focus of the stateside program and undercut the federalism inherent in the existing program. Nonetheless, I was encouraged that the President, after 4 years, recognized the importance of sharing LWCF moneys with State and local governments. More progress in restoring stateside was made last month when the House appropriated $30 million for the program. With this amendment, the Senate is doing its part. With tough budget targets, it was not easy to find $20 million in such a lean bill; however, we were able to find offsets from a variety of programs. These are difficult choices, but well worth it. I wish we could have provided more money for this important program. However, it is a start. I will do all I can do to ensure that in conference the Senate recede to the House and provide $30 million for the stateside matching grant program. I also will continue to seek permanent funding for this program so that we do not have to fight this annual appropriations battle. Our system of government works best when all levels of government work together with the private sector to pursue shared goals. Few goals are as worthy as recreation for families and communities. Recreation is not a child's play. It is more than a hobby. It is a necessary component of our lives. It boosts the economy. It helps build stronger families and communities. And it encourages conservation efforts and helps preserve open space. So why deny communities matching funds for recreation from proceeds of our offshore leasing program? I support offshore leasing and the use of some proceeds for stateside LWCF matching grants to State and local governments. This amendment gives us a good reason to focus on the value of recreation to our lives and how we can do a better job encouraging people of all ages to enjoy America's natural splendor. Trips to national parks are remembered for a lifetime, but most day-to-day recreation takes place close to home and demand for local recreation resources is high and increasing. We must restore the LWCF stateside program; it is a good investment. This amendment is a start.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Currently there is not a specific line item appropriation in the bill before us, H.R. 2466, for this project. However, it would be my hope that in conference the senior senator from Alaska and the Subcommittee Chairman could work to find the dollars for design and construction needed to make this visitor center a reality.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I strongly support Senator Hutchison's amendment to keep the Department of Interior from spending additional money for one year to implement their flawed oil valuation regulation. I am a cosponsor of the amendment. Our amendment does two things: First, it puts the Senate on record opposing a Value-added Tax proposed by the executive branch. Second, it prevents MMS from implementing a rule that is so corrupt the Interior Department's inspector general and the Department of Justice are currently investigating $700,000 in payoffs to federal employees involved in the rule. The CBO scored the impact of this amendment at $11 million. This is the apparent cost of standing up for Congress' constitutional prerogative to raise revenues. The domestic oil and gas industry is being driven from our shores. During the oil embargo in 1973, we imported 36 percent of our oil. Today, we import 56 percent of our oil. We will continue to burn oil-- in fact, we burn a bit more now than we did in 1973. But our own industry is in a death spiral, caused in part by government actions like this. Over 50,000 American families have lost their jobs in the last two years as companies leave the U.S. for foreign shores--foreign shores where it's cheaper to drill and governments encourage domestic energy production. Without adoption of the Hutchison amendment, we will be saying: ``Go ahead. Raise royalties and taxes. We, the U.S. Senate, yield our power to the Executive.'' This Senator cannot stand by and watch all power flow to the Executive. ``Rent-A-Rule''--POGO, etc. Neither can this Senator stand aside when there are serious allegations of payoffs to government employees involved in the rule. In May of this year, the press began to report that two federal employees--one at the Department of Interior; the other, retired from the Department of energy--had taken $700,000 from a self-described ``public interest group'' as an ``award'' for their work in the federal government on the rule to raise royalty rates on domestic oil producers. This group, the project on Government Oversight, or POGO, has not been very effective in its membership drive--it has only about 200 subscribers--but it has been very successful attracting trial lawyers as board members. In fact, the trial lawyers on its board have spent years litigating the very cases on oil value that the proposed DOI rule would benefit if the Boxer Amendment is adopted. The inspector general and the U.S. Department of Justice public Integrity Section are investigating these payments. In two letters to the Secretary of Interior, Senators Domenici, Nickles, and I have asked the Department to withdraw the proposed rule pending the outcome of the investigations into whether the employees can take money for ``fixing'' a rule. The Department has declined to do so twice. In answering our first letter, DOI said the two had nothing to do with the rule. Senators Domenici, Nickles, and I wrote back, this time providing public documents proving their involvement, and asking them, based upon the evidence, to withdraw the rule. The response to our second letter was to acknowledge that the two apparently did have some involvement in the rule, but the decision to change the rule was made prior to their official involvement. The Department's argument is misleading. The two federal employees worked hand-in-glove with POGO to convince the Department to craft a rule to POGO's liking. According to POGO's Executive Director, POGO even arranged for the employees to be specifically requested to testify before a House subcommittee to put pressure on the Department to start a rulemaking. All the facts suggest that these employees were influential, if not instrumental, in the decision to issue the rule and the content of the rule. After influencing the decision to issue the rule, the employees took part in the public comment phase of the rulemaking. In other words, they were up to their elbows in this issue from start to finish. A skeptic could conclude that the employees, working with POGO and the trial attorneys who stood to gain from out-of-court settlements, earned their ``rewards.'' POGO, after all, admits they paid them $350,000 each. The Department's position appears to be that POGO paid the wrong bureaucrats. The public integrity of the public rulemaking process is at stake, even if Secretary Babbitt fails to see it. In our nation, federal employees are not paid to push rule changes which benefit one party in a lawsuit. This is a dangerous precedent.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair. Madam President, let's start with some facts because what is appropriate is to recognize just what the current policy of the administration is towards the U.S. forests managed by the Forest Service. Clearly, as we look at where we are today, as this chart shows in the dark purple, the U.S. Forest Service volume sold, vis-a-vis the annual mortality--the annual mortality are those trees that are dead or dying--that in the years 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, the annual mortality, compared with the volume sold--and that is evident by the green spheres that come up through the chart--the mortality has exceeded the commercial volume sold. The suggestion is, what has happened to forest health? You have to manage for forest health based on professionals, professionals who are trained and have committed their lives to best forest management practices. What we have in the debate that is occurring on this floor is a debate over emotions, the emotions over whether timber, trees, a renewable resource, should be harvested or not. We have heard the Senator from Idaho expound a little bit on the attitude prevailing in the U.S. environmental groups, and particularly the Sierra Club, which, much to their credit, has come out wholeheartedly and said: We want to terminate harvesting in the national forests, all of the national forests. They make no bones about it. That is just a fact. The justification for Senator Bryan's amendment, which would timber program in the committee bill by $34 million, leads to the environmental agenda, the agenda of the Sierra Club that wants to terminate harvesting in national forests. The amendment isn't what it appears to be. While I am sympathetic to my friend from Oregon and his efforts to redirect $10 million to wildlife surveys in the Northwest, I again think we ought to go back and recognize where the objection is. The objection comes from national environmental groups who are opposed to logging in the national forests. The policies of the Clinton administration relative to logging in the national forests are evident, but the justification to support that is very lacking if we look at the facts. The facts are that there is currently almost 250 billion cubic feet-- more than 1 trillion board feet--of volume of standing timber in the national forests. That is a significant amount--250 billion cubic feet of volume. The annual growth--that is the growth that occurs every year--is about 23 billion board feet. Do you know what we are cutting, Madam President? We are cutting somewhere between 2.5 and 3 billion board feet. What is the justification in the sense of forest management practices and the forest health when clearly the forests are not in danger of being overcut? The regrowth at 23 billion board feet each year, compared with the cut of 2.5 to 3 billion board feet, clearly shows we are growing timber faster, much faster than we are cutting it--in fact, about 7 to 8 times faster than we are cutting it. As evidenced by this chart, the mortality now is exceeding what we are cutting in commercial timber. Good forest management practices would indicate something be done about the dead and dying trees that are infested with the spruce bark beetle and so forth, and that a program be initiated so healthy trees grow back in again. But, again, these decisions are not being made by those responsible for forest health, professional forest managers. They are being made by environmental groups, and they are being made on the basis of emotional arguments. You should recognize the reality that timber is a renewable resource that can be properly managed, as evidenced by the existing volume that we have in this country, 250 billion cubic feet in the national forests--and I will repeat it again--with 23 billion board feet annual growth, and the realization we are only cutting 3 billion board feet a year. We certainly need some changes. The changes need to move off the emotional arguments and get into what is good for the forests, what is good for the health of the forests. You clear out the diseased trees. You encourage programs that eliminate fire hazards. I have worked with Senator Bryan and his colleague from Nevada on mining legislation which is important to his State and important to Western States, important to my State of Alaska. I am disappointed that he has seen fit to again take this issue on to reduce by $34 million the Committee's recommended timber program. I recognize that is not a big issue in his State. But I think it basically addresses a policy within this administration that has prevailed for some time, and that is to oppose resource development on public lands, whether it be grazing, whether it be oil and gas leasing, whether it be mining, and certainly in the case of timber. I would like to communicate a little experience that we had in Alaska relative to studies and the resource management associated with the wildlife of the forest and to suggest to the Senator from Oregon that these challenges on the adequacy of wildlife studies seem endless. You no sooner get a professional opinion on the adequacy or inadequacy of a certain species within the forest, and if it is unfavorable to those who want to terminate logging in the forest, they simply go to a judge, get an injunction, and suggest that the study was inadequate and lacked the thoroughness that it needed. Let me tell you a little story about what happened in Alaska. We had the U.S. Forest Service involved in what they called the TLMP, the Tongass Land Management Plan. They spent 10 years to develop a plan. They spent $13 million. Previously, we had been cutting about 420 million board feet a year. The TLMP came down, after this 10-year study and $13 million, and cut it, the allowable cut, to 267 million board feet. What happened as a consequence of that? We lost our only two year- round manufacturing plants in our State. The Sitka and Ketchikan pulpmills, the combined workforce, plus those in the woods, amounted to some 3,400 jobs, most of which were lost. What was the forest health issue regarding this reduction? All the timber in the Tongass, as most Members who have been up there know, is old growth timber. But what they do not realize is that 30 percent of that timber is dead or dying. It has no other use than wood fiber. So it is put in the pulp mills. Without the pulp mills, we have no utilization of that timber. Much of those logs are now ground up in chips or exported to Japan or out to pulp mills in the Pacific Northwest. Let me go back to the Tongass Land Management Plan where they cut the sales level from 420 million board feet to 267 million board feet. Within 9 months, the administration, after spending 10 years and $13 million, decided that volume of 267 million board feet was too high. So they cut it arbitrarily, without any public hearing, as a consequence of pressure from national environmental groups who used an emotional argument, and also the reality that maybe the easiest place to terminate harvesting in national forests is in Alaska. We have two Senators and one Congressman. Alaska is a long way away. Nobody can go up and look at it and recognize that we have cut less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the Tongass forest in Alaska over the last 40 years and that our regrowth is 10 times what we have cut. They want to terminate harvesting, and the Tongass national forest in Alaska is a good place to start. So they came back and cut the proposed allowable sales level from 267 to 178 million--no public hearings, no input, no further studies. They spent, again, 10 years and $13 million for the first study, and they weren't satisfied with it. So I say to my friend from Oregon, don't be misled by the question of the adequacy of wildlife studies in the Pacific Northwest. On the goshawk, we in Alaska are now under a challenge, on an issue we thought we had behind us because several years ago we had a challenge on a threatened and endangered species, the goshawk. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spent several years working with the Forest Service to do an evaluation, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service came to the conclusion that the goshawk was not threatened by the timber harvest program in the Tongass. We thought we had that issue behind us. We didn't. Environmental groups--from the Southwest, I might add--petitioned the judge on the adequacy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service evaluation of the goshawk study and the judge said, go back and do it again. If you can't depend on the best experts to come to a conclusion, then this is simply an open-ended effort by either bureaucrats, or environmental groups, or both to terminate harvesting in the national forests. That is what has happened as a consequence of the attitude of this administration towards timber harvesting. Again, we have 250 billion cubic feet of volume standing in the national forests of the United States. The annual growth is 23 billion board feet. We are harvesting between 2.5 and 3 billion board feet. We are regrowing seven to eight times our annual harvest. Yet we have those who would say the forest program is being subsidized. There is no realization of what timber sales and related roads offer in providing access for timber, availability to the public, jobs, payrolls and communities. The proposal by Senator Bryan would reduce the program about 13 percent below the current 1999 program level. I am pleased the Society of American Foresters opposes the amendment. I believe that letter has been introduced in the Record. If not, I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I urge the Congress to support the significant contribution that the timber program, even though it is in decline, has been making to improve the national forests. Again, recognize that the program is smaller than a few years ago. The Bryan amendment would continue this harmful slide, because the ultimate objective is to terminate harvesting in the national forests. The redirecting of timber funds to wildlife activities in support of timber still has the same negative effect. That negative effect has been highlighted by my friend from Idaho, as he discussed the effects of a reduction in the timber program. What we are talking about on this chart is that there is more timber dying than is being cut. That is the harsh reality of where we are. What kind of forest management practice is that? It is a preservationist practice. What is the role of the Forest Service? Habitat management? Stewards of the forest? They are not aggressive in thinning programs, which are needed for the growth of new trees. What the Forest Service has become is a custodial management agency. They don't know where they are going. They are torn between past leaders that used to make decisions on the basis of what is best for forest health, and the new generation that is directed to a large degree by national environmental groups that want to terminate harvesting in the national forests. It is OK if you are from a State that has large private holdings. Washington State has a number of large private land companies. It is OK if you have large State-owned forests. But if you are in my State of Alaska, where the Federal Government, the U.S. Forest Service--the entire Tongass National Forest is owned and managed by the Federal Government--you have a different set of circumstances. Our communities are in the forest. Our State capital, Juneau, towns like Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Haines, Skagway, Sitka, all are in the forest. People live in the forest. They were under the assumption they would be able to work with the Federal Government, when we became a State in 1959, to maintain, on a renewable basis, an industry base. They recognize that in our case our forest, as an old-growth forest, is in the process of dying. Thirty percent of that timber is dying. I had an opportunity to fly over some of the Northeastern States over the recess, Maine and other areas. I noted that they have a healthy timber industry, managed, if you will, to a large degree through the private holdings of landowners and corporations and the State. They have jobs. They have pulp mills. They have a renewability. Yet we are strangled by policies that are dictated by environmental groups, that are dictated by Members from States who have no interest in the national forest from the standpoint of those of us who are dependent on it in the West and particularly in my State in Alaska. Finally, I ask that my colleagues reflect that this amendment would really reduce the tools the Forest Service has available for stewardship activities, tools that improve forest health and improve wildlife habitat and improve other forest ecosystems as well. Don't be misled by the objective of those who have a different agenda with regard to the national forests. Let us recognize that forests live and die. With proper management, they can yield a bounty of prosperity, a bounty of renewability. But we have to have the recognition that those decisions with regard to the forest are not going to be made by the politicians in this body. They are going to be made by those professionals who are prepared to put their reputation behind their recommendations or, for that matter, the other way around, and do what is best for the forest. The Bryan amendment certainly does not do this, by cutting funding for timber sales and roads, and hence, decreasing the timber program. I yield the floor.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that a full committee hearing has been scheduled before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place on Wednesday, September 15, 1999, at 10:00 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of this hearing is to consider the nominations of Sylvia Baca to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management, David Hayes to be Deputy Secretary of the Interior, and Ivan Itkin to be Director of the Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. For further information, please contact David Dye of the Committee staff at (202) 224-0624. Subcommittee on Investigations