Frank Murkowski

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, let me recognize and thank my friend, Senator Harkin, who was kind enough to allow me to proceed out of order to accommodate my schedule. I ask unanimous consent that he may be recognized next.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, the Committee on Veterans' Affairs would like to request unanimous consent to hold a hearing on veterans' health care eligibility priorities. The hearing will be held on May 8, 1996, at 10 a.m., in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 8, 1996, at 2:45 p.m. to hold a closed hearing on intelligence matters.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee to Investigate Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 8, and Thursday, May 9, 1996, to conduct hearings pursuant to Senate Resolution 120.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair. I thank you for the time allotted to me and wish you a good day. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I wish you a good morning. I ask you to imagine the following situation: You are stricken with bone cancer. Unfortunately, your doctor informs you that radiation therapy is no longer an option because it creates low-level radioactive waste and they simply cannot store any more. Or another one: A loved one tests HIV positive. Sadly, we learn that breakthrough research using radioactive materials to find a cure for AIDS is being suspended. Why? Because we cannot store any more waste. Finally, imagine this: You are the parent of a student at the University of California. You're informed that a fire occurred in a radioactive storage waste building on campus and exposed your son or daughter to radiation released by the fire. These are not farfetched situations, Mr. President. In fact, radioactive waste is piling up on college campuses, hospitals, and businesses at some 800 sites in California alone. This chart tries to depict the distribution of low-level radioactive waste that is stored today in California. The current situation shows that it is virtually all over--in the bay area, the Sacramento area, southern California, Los Angeles, San Diego, and so forth. There are 2,254 material licensees who store waste at some 800 sites in populated areas, endangered by the threat of fires, earthquakes, and floods. It is an extraordinary expense and duplication of effort. Over 2,000 colleges, hospitals, and businesses in California alone are licensed to use radioactive materials. I have a list of them. There are radioactive materials or waste in San Francisco, as a matter of fact, at the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco; in Chinatown, at 845 Jackson Street, to be specific; the University of San Francisco at 2130 Fulton Street; in Santa Monica at 2200 Santa Monica Boulevard; in Beverly Hills at 9400 Brighton Way. These are just a few of the research centers, the hospitals, the biotechnical firms, and the cancer treatment centers that use radioactive materials. These materials are needed and used to improve and prolong our lives. But we endanger our opportunity to enjoy these benefits when we do not allow the State of California to carry out the radioactive trash for proper disposal. That is exactly what is happening today because our Interior Secretary, Bruce Babbitt, will not allow the State of California to dispose of its low-level waste at Ward Valley, which is the site California has licensed for this waste. Mr. President, let me show you the second chart. This is California without those 800-plus sites, with 1 site designated as a repository for low-level waste, 1 site in a remote area away from the populated areas, away from the area of southern California, away from the bay area. This was a site selected after a 7-year process of scientific study and public input. It is a site secure from fires, earthquakes, and floods. It is carefully monitored and regulated, meeting all Federal and State health and safety protection standards. Is it not better, Mr. President, to just have 1 site for low-level radioactivity instead of over 800 sites? Certainly it is. Soon we could reach a point where advanced medical treatment for cancers and other medical research will be curtailed or even halted due to a failure to deal with the waste problem. Is this a sane situation? Certainly not. Unfortunately, many of the temporary sites used for storage of radioactive waste across California are vulnerable to exposure such as fires, earthquakes, or floods, which could cause an accidental release of radioactivity in urban or suburban neighborhoods. Doctors are worried that the storage problem will impact, if you will, future cancer treatment. Researchers are worried that it will impact medical research. Educators are wondering how they will explain to the parents of students that their children live on campus that stores low-level radioactive waste. Clearly, Mr. President, California has an environmental problem. But to California's credit, California has acted in good faith to address this problem. Mr. President, as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has the oversight for this matter of both low-level and high-level radioactive waste, I commend the Governor and the State of California for the manner in which they have attempted to live under the Federal law which has given the States the authority to address low-level waste. Acting in accordance with the Low Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act and all applicable environmental laws and regulations, California has found a solution. California wants this radioactive waste, used, again, by more than 2,200 licensees in California, they want it to be removed from those 800 suburban and urban locations to a safe, licensed monitoring location at Ward Valley in the Mojave Desert, which I have shown on the chart here. Let us go back and look at a little of the history. After an 8-year effort under the NRC guidelines, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission guidelines, and the expenditure of over $45 million, the California Department of Health Services issued a license for a low-level waste site at Ward Valley. The California Department of Health had the authority to issue the license. The Federal Government gave them the authority. They issued it. But even with that license in hand, the operator of the site has been unable to begin construction and operation because radical antinuclear activists have launched a crusade to stop Ward Valley. Those activists have used every conceivable method. They have sued. They have demonstrated. They have occupied the site. They have made outrageous and scientifically indefensible claims. But these groups are wrong. They have been proven wrong. All of their radical lawsuits challenging the licenses have been heard, and they have been dismissed. Their legal challenges have been exhausted. Two environmental impact statements have shown their radical claims about Ward Valley's environmental impacts to be absolutely inaccurate, just plain wrong. The two biological opinions from the Endangered Species Act have shown their radical claims about Ward Valley's impact on the desert tortoise are simply wrong. They have reached out under every conceivable avenue in an attempt to find an excuse to stop going ahead with Ward Valley. In a special scientific report which was prepared for Secretary of the Interior Babbitt, the National Academy of Sciences concluded, on the issue of ground water contamination which was certainly a legitimate consideration, that there is a highly unlikely prospect of any potential threat of ground water contamination in this area with so little rainfall out in the Mojave Desert. They further stated that there is no health threat posed to Colorado River drinking water as some of the radical opponents continue to erroneously claim. They claim that somehow this is going to seep down into the ground water and get into the Colorado River. They will reach out and conclude almost anything, Mr. President. As the chairman of the National Academy's committee recently wrote: . . . none of the data reviewed by the Committee support further delay or opposition to construction of this facility, provided the oversight and monitoring recommendations of the Committee are in place. On the merits, the radical antinuclear activists have been slam- dunked. But merits are not enough in this process, Mr. President, as we both know. As the Senator from Wyoming and myself, the Senator from Alaska, have seen time and time again, you can win on the merits and you can lose on the emotional arguments. But on this issue, the activists have lost every battle. They have been proven wrong again and again and again. But the BLM land for the Ward Valley site has not been transferred to the State of California. This is BLM, Bureau of Land Management, land in California. It has not been transferred. Why? The waste still sits in the neighborhoods, still sits in the schools, still sits in the hospitals. Why has it not been done? It has not been done because the antinuclear activists have convinced the Interior Department to stand in the way of the transfer. At each opportunity they present a new twist, a new obstacle. The latest twist involves the discovery of elevated levels of tritium gas at an old low-level waste site in Beatty, NV. Opponents of Ward Valley claim that this somehow proves that the same thing will happen at Ward Valley. The Interior Department is now using this as an excuse for further delay at Ward Valley. It is interesting to note what Secretary Babbitt's own Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, in a memorandum dated February 14, had to say about the supposed links between the Beatty site and Ward Valley: . . . the observed tritium distribution at Beatty is probably the result of the burial of liquid wastes and the fact that some disposal trenches at Beatty were left open for years until filled, allowing accumulation and infiltration of precipitation. . . . The [Ward Valley] license does not permit disposal of radioactive waste in liquid form and requires that only the minimum amount of open trench necessary for the safe and efficient operation shall be excavated at any one time. Because of the differences in waste burial practices at the Beatty site compared to those intended for the Ward Valley site . . . extrapolations of the results from Beatty to Ward Valley are too trenuous to have much scientific value. The day after receiving this memo, the Deputy Secretary of the Interior called for further tests, further delays, even though the scientific advice he received was to the contrary. Now, what you have here is a rather interesting situation. You have the State of California, who has gone through a process of expending over $40 million on the evaluation, the application, and the licensing. Who has a greater responsibility to the health and welfare of the people of California than the Governor and the California Department of Health that have approved this site? They are certainly competent in determining whether or not the recommendations by the scientific community are carried out, all Federal and State laws are mandated in compliance with regulations. The Secretary somehow seems to dismiss this. Why would the Interior Department want to take this attitude? Some suggest they made a political calculation that Ward Valley can yet be another environment issue that can be shaped to make perhaps Congress look bad with respect to protecting the environment. I am here to say that their political calculation is wrong, Mr. President. On the issue of Ward Valley, the radical and antinuclear activists and their friends in the administration have simply gone too far. I think they have crossed the line, because they are jeopardizing the environment, because they are jeopardizing human health and safety, because they evidently would rather keep radioactive waste near the schools and the neighborhoods than at a licensed site in the remote desert, a remote area where people are far away, where children do not play and people do not work. Put simply, they have gone too far because their radicalism has reached the point where it will start harming the safety of the people. They think they can get away with that, because they believe Ward Valley can be spun as an issue where the so-called environmentalists are keeping Congress from thrashing the environment. Sooner or later, even in this town, even with the media perception being what it is with respect to radioactivity, I have to believe that the plain and simple truth will eventually defeat this misinformation. The plain and simple truth is this, Mr. President: We have an obligation to protect the environment. We want to protect the environment. If you want to maintain important medical research, advance treatment, and so forth, if you want to get stored radioactivity waste out of schools, hospitals, and neighborhoods to a site that the National Academy of Sciences and the State of California says is best, opening Ward Valley is the right thing to do. Just do not take my word for it, Mr. President. Take the word of the National Association of Cancer Patients; the Association of American Medical Colleges; the American College of Nuclear Physicians; the California Medical Association; the American Medical Association; the Southwestern Low-Level Radioactivity Waste Commission, representing California, Arizona, North Dakota, and South Dakota; the Southeast Compact Commission, representing Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia; the Midwest Interstate Low-Level radioactivity Waste Commission, representing Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin; the Northwest Interstate Low-Level Radioactivity Commission, representing Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming; the State of California Department of Health; University of California at Los Angeles, UCLA; University of Southern California; Stanford University--and more, Mr. President, too numerous to name, who all support Ward Valley. Mr. President, this should not be a partisan issue. We have not sought to make it a partisan issue. Senate bill 1596, a bill to transfer the land to the Ward Valley site, was introduced by both a Democrat and Republican. It was voted out of committee by bipartisan voice vote. Let me warn those who attempt to make this a partisan issue. If you oppose the bill for partisan political purposes, you are on the wrong side of science. You will be on the wrong side of the environment. You will be on the wrong side of human health and safety. You will endanger the viability of the Low-Level Radioactivity Waste Policy Act. The result of that might mean that the next low-level waste will be in your State. I invite any and all my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring Senate bill 1596. Mr. President, the point I want to make here--and I think it is very important--this is an issue that is in the interest not just of the State of California but of the entire Nation. It is going to set the threshold for just what we do with low-level waste, whether we continue, like the ostrich, to bury our head in the sand and simply ignore it. We have seen, in this chart, in the State of California we have over 800 sites. If those critics propose no other alternative, or whether we have one site that is approved by the State, supported by the Governor, addressed by the National Academy of Science, then we can proceed with this. That will set, if you will, policy in other States where we have the same set of circumstances, perhaps not as acute in California. I suggest New York and other areas where we have a concentration of population and advanced medical and technical experiments going on. It is not a partisan issue. It is an environmental issue. It is a responsible environmental issue. And this administration and this Secretary of the Interior by not coming up with an alternative that is better than that proposed by the State of California after the Federal Government has given the States the authority to proceed with disposing the low-level waste is acting irresponsibly. What has happened here? I do not criticize President Clinton. But I criticize the bad advice that he has been given by Secretary Babbitt because the White House, in following the advice of the Secretary of the Interior, has made this a partisan political issue, and they should not have done so. The issue is science. Science is on our side. The public health and the safety arguments are on our side. Ward Valley is the legitimate site. If we are going to give the States the responsibility, as we have done, and then turn around and not let them exercise that responsibility, then the enemy, as is often the case, is us. We have an opportunity to do something about it, Mr. President. Senate bill 1596 is just that. It would legislate because the Secretary of the Interior refuses to proceed the land exchange mandating that the Federal Government make this site available to the State of California. Mr. President, I could not be more outspoken in my frustration, and joining with the State of California in a matter in which this issue-- which affects the health and the welfare, and sets the precedent for the manner in which we are going to address the eventual disposition of low-level nuclear waste--is to be addressed. How can we, Mr. President, think we will resolve the issue of managing the high-level radioactive waste that has been generated around this country by our national defense facilities as well as our nuclear powerplants if we cannot even agree on what to do with low- level waste? That is the situation we are facing today. We have a proposal before this body to designate the Nevada test site as the site for a temporary high-level nuclear waste storage facility. What is this all about, Mr. President? What we have done over the last 15 years or so is expend over $5 billion to investigate the suitability of Yucca Mountain, NV, as a site for a permanent geologic repository for high-level nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain is adjacent to the Nevada test site, which, for the last 50 years or so, has been used for a series of above and below ground tests of atomic bombs. The Nevada test site is an area of Nevada that is still off limits to the public because of the activities that have taken place there. I have been there. I have been in the tunnel that is being dug into Yucca Mountain to evaluate the permanent repository site. Currently the test tunnel is nearly 3 miles long. However, the prospect of the geologic repository being the answer to our immediate high-level waste storage problem is fraught with the same bureaucratic inefficiencies associated with the Ward Valley low-level waste facility that I just discussed. The crux of the current situation is that we have waste stored throughout the Nation adjacent to our nuclear powerplants. About 20 percent of our country's power generation comes from nuclear powerplants. This waste is stored at the plant sites. On-site storage is licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But the fact is that the Federal Government made a contractual commitment to take that waste away from the reactor sites by the year 1998. Under those contracts, the Federal Government has collected about $11 billion from America's ratepayers to pay for a government facility to store the nuclear fuel. Under the existing program, we are not going to be able to meet the Government's commitment to take waste in 1998 or anytime in the near future. Already, there are lawsuits that have been filed against the Federal Government for nonperformance. So here we sit, with a program that is continuing to pursue a permanent geologic repository with no other alternatives in sight. We will spend perhaps another $4 to $5 billion before the Department of Energy will make a decision as to whether or not it should apply for a license for Yucca Mountain for use as a permanent repository. Then we have to actually get it licensed. Although the odds on the site being found suitable by the Department of Energy have been set at 80 percent, the odds on actually getting a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have been set at 50-50. This gives you some idea of the gamble we are taking with the ratepayer's money. So what many of us have proposed is that the Nevada test site be used for an interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel until there is a determination of whether or not Yucca Mountain can be licensed for permanent storage. There are some interesting things going on in the area of nuclear waste disposal. Japan, France, and England operate under an entirely different theory. Legitimate concerns over nuclear weapons proliferation arise because nuclear reactors generate small amounts of plutonium mixed into their spent nuclear fuel. It is a policy in the United States that we take this high-level waste and bury it. In France and Japan the practice is to recover it, and through a MOx fuel process, put it back into the nuclear reactors, burn it, and thereby reduce the proliferation risk. Each country's ultimate disposition of its high-level waste is an interesting comparison, to say the least. The French and the Japanese, of course, have the theory of burning plutonium by injecting it into the reactor with depleted uranium. This disposes of the proliferation threat because the high-level waste that result does not contain plutonium. You have a residue that is a glass- like substance. The point is that this kind of material cannot be reprocessed and an explosive device made out of it. So while it is a rather complex concept, Mr. President, the theory is that you can either choose to bury your high-level waste permanently in the belief that you can build a site that can be proven to withstand earthquakes, that will withstand flooding, if it ever should occur, or some other natural event that might interfere with the storage site, or whether you use an advanced technical process and burn the plutonium and, therefore, eliminate the threat of proliferation. Although other countries have chosen this different approach, I would like to point out that, in S. 1271, we are proposing that a temporary storage site be built in Nevada, and that the plan to build a permanent repository facility continue. Why Nevada, Mr. President? As I have said, the site would be in that portion of Nevada that has been used for tests of atomic bombs over the last 50 years. It is a site that obviously carries a great deal of experience with radioactive materials and seems to meet--at least as far as we can tell after 5 billion dollars' worth of research--the test as a viable site for a permanent repository. Having one interim storage facility would remove this material from the areas where it is currently stored near the nuclear power stations in some 41 States. We have over 80 storage areas in those 41 States. Illinois, for example, has several in their State. Centralizing all of that spent fuel in one location is really what we are talking about in designating the Nevada test site as a temporary storage site. My good friends from Nevada are opposed to this. Why are they opposed to this? Well, unfortunately, we only have 50 States, Mr. President. You have to put nuclear waste somewhere. Where is the best place to put it? Well, in my mind, it seems to me that Nevada is the best place because the Nevada test site, used for nuclear materials testing for so long, is remote and is because of its use in the past, must be secured by the Government for the foreseeable future. So why not use this site as a temporary repository until we can determine where our permanent repository will be? If the permanent repository site at Yucca Mountain is found to be suitable and the Department of Energy decides to go forward to try to get a license, we will need an interim storage facility at that site. Even after a suitability decision is made, we are going to have to spend another $4.5 or $5 billion to determine whether that site meets our licensing requirements for a permanent repository. That decision will be years down the line. There is another activity going on here that I want to point out to my colleagues. Some groups see this as a way to terminate, if you will, the operations of many of our nuclear power generating reactors around the country because the spent fuel storage at those sites is almost filled to capacity. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses them to a specific capacity, and when they are filled, why, obviously, they cannot add more spent fuel without violating their license. Building additional on-site storage requires State approval. Because the Federal Government is not able to fulfill its promise to take the fuel away, getting that approval usually becomes a very contentious process. Of course, the utilities' plans to store spent nuclear fuel on-site were dependent on the Federal Government meeting its commitment to take that high-level nuclear waste from the power generators at those sites by the year 1998. However, we do not have the ability to meet that commitment; we do not have a permanent site licensed or built. So temporary storage is an interim alternative that makes a lot of sense. My colleagues from Nevada have suggested that interim storage is an impractical alternative because you are moving spent nuclear fuel from areas around the country where it is currently stored to one site in the State of Nevada. They have suggested that if it is decided that the permanent storage site will be somewhere else, you will have to move it again. That is a bit presumptuous, because the site at Yucca Mountain is the best site that we have been able to come up with so far in all the 50 States. There is every reason to believe that ultimately Yucca Mountain will be determined the permanent site. In any case, we must move the spent nuclear fuel out of the other 80 sites where it is stored now and put it in one concentrated area until such time as a final decision is made about a permanent site. The Nevada test site is the best site. It will go across the country in casks that are engineered in such a way as to withstand any imaginable accident, including railroad derailments. These are very highly engineered containers. A great deal of expertise has gone into their design. So the exposure to the public from the standpoint of transportation is virtually nil. The risk can be almost eliminated. We can, therefore, safely take this waste that is in the 41 affected States, move it to Nevada, and temporarily store it until we have a permanent repository. That is what the legislation is all about. As time goes on, I will urge the leadership to take up the legislation designating the Nevada test site as the site for a temporary storage facility, and I will proceed with extensive floor statements describing the sites around the United States where we have nuclear powerplants, the concentration of nuclear waste that is stored, and the merits of why the Nevada test site is the most logical and practical site and why we should do it now. As I indicated earlier with my discussion of the Ward Valley low- level waste situation, this is yet another serious environmental issue where we are being urged by some to put our head in the sand rather than address a critical problem. This waste already exists. Further, we need the 20-percent electricity that is generated by the nuclear power industry. If we are to shut down those reactors, what are we going to replace it with? Are we going to replace it with coal or oil? That energy must come from some other source. We need the nuclear power generating industry and its contribution to the electric supply of the United States. We cannot do without it. But whether or not we continue to have nuclear power, the question is how we can responsibly relieve the existing spent nuclear fuel that has accumulated over an extended period of time. How can we meet the Federal Government's obligation? The Federal Government has been paid $11 billion by ratepayers to take this waste by 1998, and we will not able to do it under the existing program. The only responsible alternative is to proceed and designate the Nevada test site as a temporary repository site until such time as a permanent repository can be licensed. So it is my hope we can schedule this legislation in the not too distant future and proceed with legislation that presents a responsible alternative to the current irresponsible policy of simply avoiding a decision on this critical issue. Mr. President, I have editorials from newspapers including the Oregon Statesman Journal, the Washington Post, the Denver Post, the St. Joseph, MO Herald Palladium, and the Harrisburg, PA Patriot-News, as well as many others, in support of naming Yucca Mountain a temporary repository for nuclear waste. I ask unanimous consent that a sample of these editorials be printed in the Record.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for about 10 to 12 minutes.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank my friend from Georgia and wish him a good day as well as the Presiding Officer, my good friend and colleague, Senator Stevens. Good morning. Mr. President, I just came from a Finance Committee hearing where our majority leader, Senator Dole, spoke very eloquently about the issue of the removal of the 4.3-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax. I commend the majority leader as well as our colleague, Senator Gramm, for proposing the repeal of this unwise and unjust tax. As everyone knows in this body, the pressure to repeal the 1993 gas tax is, to a large degree, related to the recent spike in gasoline prices that has occurred in every State, with California being especially hard hit. In my State of Alaska where, by necessity, a large number of vehicles must be four-wheel drive, we are currently paying $1.33 for unleaded regular. The irony of that, as you know, Mr. President, is we are providing about 22, 23 percent of all the crude oil that is produced domestically in this country. Next week, as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I will be holding hearings in that committee to examine the underlying reasons for these price hikes. We are going to have representatives from the major oil companies that produce domestically as well as producers and distributors that depend heavily on imports. We are going to have refiners that depend on domestic supply and those that depend on imports. We are going to have testimony from retailers, and we are also going to examine an element that is often overlooked, and that is the gas tax aspect that is added on by both the State and Federal governments. The preliminary information I have suggests there are several reasons for these price increases. One is, we have had a very cold, and very extended winter that has forced refiners to continue processing heating oil longer than usual. We have just-in-time inventory methods adopted by many oil companies that have left smaller than normal gasoline reserves on hand. We have had an increase--and this is interesting--in worldwide demand as a consequence of the fast growing economy in Asia, putting pressure on oil stocks around the world. And America's demand for gasoline has been increasing as more than 40 percent of the new vehicles sold are light trucks or sport utility vehicles that are so popular. And these vehicles only get 15 miles or so to the gallon. And, of course, we have raised the speed limit in many areas. But, realistically, the discussion of eliminating the 4.3-cent-a- gallon tax, while it is interesting, misses the underlying issue, which is the issue of supply and exploration for new sources of domestic oil. I certainly support repealing the gas tax because it should not have been adopted in the first place. The gas tax hike, along with $240 billion in other new taxes was put through by a Democratic-controlled Senate in 1993 without a single Republican Senator supporting it. It was adopted at that time at the insistence of President Clinton. But the point I want to make is, we are talking about taking off the gas tax and we are not talking to any degree about the basic problem, and that is the problem of supply. Furthermore, the potential revenue loss associated with this is about $30 billion, if it is extended out and removed for the entire period that is anticipated in the budget. Let us look at some energy facts. U.S. oil consumption today is 18 million barrels each day. We are importing 9 million barrels each day. In 1973, the year of the Arab oil embargo, U.S. import dependence was 36 percent. It was 36 percent in 1973. Today, it is 51 percent. The Department of Energy predicts that by the year 2000--that is only 4 years from now--the United States will be importing two-thirds of its oil consumption. Since 1973, domestic oil production has fallen by 30 percent. We are producing 30 percent less. Let me reflect on an action recently taken by the President concerning pulling down the strategic petroleum reserve. As chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, we authorized, because one of the storage areas in the salt caverns was leaking, the removal of that oil. We anticipated revenue being generated from that sale. It was necessary to get that oil out; otherwise it would have leached into the water table. It was better to get it out and sell it than try to move it to another place. The President jumped on this as an answer, or a potential relief to the crisis associated with increased gasoline taxes. That is absolutely absurd. Let us look at the strategic petroleum reserve. It contains 580 million barrels, valued at about $16 billion. For the President, in his announcement about releasing 12 million barrels, to suggest that his action is going to drive down prices, it is a drop in the bucket. It is less than a day's U.S. consumption. It is a spit in the ocean compared to world oil production of 60 million barrels a day. The President also has a proposal to sell an additional 75 million barrels in the year 2002. But that proposal is to use the $1.5 billion proceeds not for energy security, but to pay for social programs. He is using the SPR for the purpose of financing social spending and using it for the purpose of regulating the market price of oil. The letter ``s'' in SPR stands for strategic--strategic petroleum reserve is what it means. The purpose of SPR was to preserve the Nation's security in the event of a supply interruption such as we saw in 1973 and 1979, and not for the purpose of financing social spending or, as I indicated, regulating the market price of oil. The President has taken upon himself to turn the SPR into almost a giant piggy bank and a back-door price regulator, without the consent of the Congress. So we have a rather curious set of circumstances here. Among the President's other anticipated relief is the assumption, coming from the United Nations, that crude oil prices would drop if Iraqi oil came back on the market. How quickly we forget. It is interesting to look at this proposal. The United Nations suggests that if it is satisfied that Iraq has allowed full and complete inspections of its nuclear weapon capability, that for humanitarian purposes Iraq would be allowed to sell roughly $1 billion worth of oil. That amount of oil equates to about 50 million barrels every 4 months, or 150 million barrels per year. Not so long ago we had a half million American troops, some of whom lost their lives in that Persian Gulf conflict. That conflict was all about Saddam Hussein controlling the world supply of oil and, as a consequence, the stranglehold that he imposed on the Kuwaitis--and he was looking at the Saudis. Mr. President, I wonder if I can ask my colleague for 3 more minutes so I can finish my statement?

Mr. MURKOWSKI. So, is it not rather ironic that suddenly we are looking for relief from Saddam Hussein who just a few years ago we tried to put in a cage because he was a threat? He was a threat to the world supply of oil. He must be laughing, saying, ``Ain't America great? Here they are, needing the contribution of Iraqi oil on the market.'' What a curious set of events. I can recall in 1971, Senator Dole, Senator McClure, Senator Simpson, Senator Metzenbaum and myself met with Saddam Hussein. It was clear at that time when we were over in Baghdad that he intended to try to control the supply of oil. The problem is, nobody believed it at that time. But here we are today, looking to Iraq to come back on line so we might relieve our dependence on imported oil. Mr. President, in the Washington Post today, Charles Krauthammer has a very interesting article. It is entitled, ``A Nation of Crybabies.'' In answer to the question of why the price is increasing, he responds by saying: ``How about--a wild guess--because supply is down and the demand is up?'' Why is the supply down? He says the country raised the speed limit. He says the sport utility roadsters are using more and more gas. He also says that crude oil production has dropped 32 percent in the last 25 years, and we will not allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for fear of disturbing the mating habits of the caribou. He goes on to say more about supply: U.S. crude oil production is in serious decline. We know that. Alaska has been producing about 23 percent of the total crude oil. He says: The North Slope of Alaska holds potentially the largest oil field in North America, bigger even than Prudhoe Bay next door, which produces 600,000 barrels a day. Unshakable opposition from Democrats has for 15 years prevented even test drilling there. Don't want to disturb a pristine environment, even in a place not one in a million Americans will ever see? Fine. But you better be prepared for the cost. Finally, Mr. President, it is fair to say that we are at a crisis. We are going to be facing increased gasoline prices. The Fourth of July we could be seeing gas prices substantially higher. I suggest they will be over $2 and in some parts of the country, they could approach $3. Finally, we have no extraordinary political development in the Mideast that can be blamed for the current price rise, but the problem relates to supply and demand. And I suggest that this body, the Senate as well as the House of Representatives, has passed an answer. They passed ANWR. ANWR passed the House and passed the Senate. There is just one person standing in the way of opening up this huge reserve that would give us energy independence, and that is President Clinton. He has to bear the responsibility associated with it. So repealing the 4.3-cent gas tax is a modest step, it is a necessary step, but the ultimate issue is developing our own resources. I thank the Chair, I thank my good friend from Georgia, and I wish my colleagues a good day.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President. I want to express my strong opposition to the passage of this legislation. This legislation would establish a new unit of the National Park System without the benefit of any consideration by the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources during this Congress. I will continue to oppose the creation of any new units the committee and the Congress come to grips with the reality of what we are doing to the National Park System by continually adding new units and ignoring the responsibility for funding. If there had been a record vote on this measure, I would have voted ``no.'' I understand that the committee reported similar legislation during the last Congress, but it was not acted upon by the Senate. The committee also agreed that this Congress we would consider the effect of wanton additions to the National Park System on the ability of the National Park Service to adequately fulfill its responsibilities under the 1916 Organic Act. The committee is in the process of trying to come to grips with this insatiable appetite to simply add more and more units, some of limited merit, to a System already overburdened by past actions. I want the Record to indicate that I promised the Senator from Massachusetts that the committee would consider the New Bedford whaling legislation this Congress, and we would have done so had he allowed the process to work. As it is, we are faced with another drain on the limited resources of the National Park Service without benefit of committee consideration. The superintendent and the other personnel will have to be stolen from other units of the System and the funding will come out of the already over stained budgets of existing units. The era of the clipper ships and the days of the whalers is certainly an important part of the history of this Nation. That history is not restricted to Massachusetts, but was an important part of the west coast and Alaska. Given the opportunity, the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources could have worked with the Senator from Massachusetts and crafted workable legislation. It is particularly ironic that it is the Senator from Massachusetts who seeks to end-run the committee process since it was his totally nongermane amendment on minimum wage that held up the omnibus parks package a few weeks ago. The single most important conservation package in over a decade was held up for political purposes and then the Senator seeks passage of legislation in the dead of night. I frankly am getting tired of the repeated chorus from the administration and the other side of the aisle on how insensitive Republicans are to the environment when all they can show is opposition to major conservation legislation. Secretary Babbitt proposes to give away three units of the National Park System as part of his Reinventing Government and then has the gall to accuse Republicans of trying to dismantle the National Park. The Senator from Massachusetts is proximately responsible for holding up a major park and conservation measure and then casually adds a new unit to an already overburdened System. Mr. President. There is a reason for the committees of the Senate and I want to express my strong opposition to this procedure. I committed to the Senator from Massachusetts and to several other of my colleagues that our committee would consider their legislation and we would attempt to come to some resolution on the toll that new areas add to the National Park System and to the idea of ``heritage'' areas. The Subcommittee on Parks has been very active and the Senator from Massachusetts can have no complaint over the sympathies of the subcommittee chairman. I have tried for over a year to move important park and conservation measures reported by the committee only to have my efforts blocked by opposition from the other side of the aisle. I find it particularly troubling that those who have spent so much time blocking passage of important legislation like the Presidio would take this opportunity to move the New Bedford legislation without benefit of committee review and recommendation. At some point Congress must come to the realization that this insatiable appetite for adding new units to the National Park System is not benefiting the environment, it is threatening existing units. No one would come to the floor with legislation to cut the funding and personnel for the Grand Canyon, Everglades, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Independence Hall, or any other unit, yet that is exactly what enactment of the New Bedford whaling measure will do. We are loving the System to death. I will continue to oppose the creation of any new units until Congress and the administrative are willing to assume the responsibility for their actions.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I strongly support the passage of this important environmental legislation. Taken together, these measures represent the most significant and important conservation package to come before the Senate in over a decade. They will preserve and protect for future generations important natural resource and historic treasures of this country as well as providing critically needed management authorities. For the most part, the measures contained in this package have languished on the Senate floor due to holds and delaying tactics from Senators. I want to congratulate the majority leader, Senator Dole, for his successful efforts to end the seemingly endless parade of obstacles to the passage of this legislation. Had we less rhetoric and a modicum of rational assistance from the administration, we might have accomplished this far earlier. We all observed the administration's game plan and the willingness of the media to cater to it, including attaching the minimum wage package to the parks legislation. Mr. President. I will not go into lengthy detail on the various measures that are finally being released, but I do want to highlight some of them at this time. Title I of this measure deals with the Presidio of San Francisco. By itself, this title is an important and critically needed measure that should have been enacted months ago. With the closure of the Presidio, the National Park Service was facing an almost impossible drain on its limited funds to maintain a unique and important resource. The legislation establishes a mechanism whereby the Presidio will be preserved and maintained for future generations, the National Park Service will be able to focus on interpretation and the visitor experience, and the site will be self-supporting. I appreciate the willingness of the two Senators from California to work with me and the committee in crafting this novel approach. Title II contains 25 miscellaneous amendments and boundary changes. Some of these measures were reported from the committee over a year ago. They affect areas from the Atlantic to the Pacific and provide essential authorities that the administration needs for proper and effective management. The remaining 34 titles include the establishment of new areas, such as the Tall Grass Prairie National Preserve, which will preserve one of the last portions of the prairie that symbolized the West. Both Senator Dole and Senator Kassebaum deserve credit for the efforts to secure passage of that measure, but it too had been held up by the other side. Among those titles is the Snowbasin Land Exchange, which is critical for the Winter Olympics. Apparently the administration is only concerned with getting through November and was prepared to let that measure languish with the other measures. The title also includes the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, an important measure that will commemorate a significant part of the civil rights movement. The Taos Pueblo Land Transfer title would transfer 764 acres of land within the Wheeler Peak Wilderness in New Mexico to the Secretary of the Interior to be held in trust for Pueblo de Taos Indians. This tract is surrounded on three sides by Pueblo lands and is an important area for use in their religious ceremonies. The Pueblo would use the lands for traditional purposes, but the lands would otherwise be managed to protect its wilderness character. Both Senator Domenici and Senator Dole were instrumental in moving that measure and I appreciate their support. The Rocky Mountain National Visitor Center, sponsored by Senators Campbell and Brown addresses a critical need at Rocky Mountain National Park through a creative public-private partnership to provide a visitor center for the park. Rocky Mountain National Park is the most popular tourist attraction in the State of Colorado, drawing over 3 million visitors every year, but has not had a visitor center. Mr. President. All these measures are important and all should have passed on their own merits long ago. These measures are important to the environment, essential to the National Park System, and will be of lasting benefit to future generations. As I stated earlier, they represent the single largest conservation package to come before the Senate in over a decade. This Senator at least wants to express his gratitude to the majority leader, Senator Dole, for being able to free at least this group of hostages from the political games. He will probably not receive the credit he is due, but if we can enact the Presidio and the other measures included in this package, it will be as a result of his efforts and his leadership and I thank him.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I would like to tell my friend, Senator Boxer, that yes, she is correct.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Senator McCain is correct. I understand his concern about the mandate on the Corinth battlefield title, and I will address it in the conference report.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that an oversight hearing has been scheduled before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on the recent increases in gasoline prices. The hearing will take place Thursday, May 9, 1996 at 9:30 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. Those wishing to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. For further information, please call Judy Brown or Howard Useem at (202) 224-7556.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair and wish the Chair a good day. I thank the floor managers for allowing additional time in morning business.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair and wish the Chair a good morning. (The remarks of Mr. Murkowski pertaining to the introduction of S. 1703 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Well, I am very disappointed. If the Chair----

Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thought it was customary that we went back and forth in a manner that is traditional with the Senate. I have seen this occur from time to time. All I can ask the Chair is to recognize and view the entire Chamber, because the Senator from Alaska had been advised to be here at 9:50. The Senator from Alaska was here and was not recognized, even though the Senator had been standing up.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, pursuant to Public Law 104-4, the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources has requested, and obtained, the opinion of the Congressional Budget Office regarding whether S. 1271, the Nuclear Policy Act of 1996 contains intergovernmental mandates as defined in that act. I ask that the opinion of the Congressional Budget Office be printed in the Congressional Record in its entirety. The opinion follows: U.S. Congress, Congressional Budget Office, Washington, DC, April 18, 1996. Hon. Frank H. Murkowski, Chairman, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office has reviewed S. 1271, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1996 as ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on March 13, 1996, in order to determine whether the bill contains intergovernmental mandates. CBO provided federal and private sector mandates cost estimates for this bill on March 28, 1996. CBO is unsure whether the bill contains intergovernmental mandates, as defined in Public Law 104-4, but we estimate that if there are mandates, they would impose costs on state, local and tribal governments totaling significantly less than the $50 million threshold established in the law. S. 1271 would amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act by directing the Department of Energy (DOE) to: Begin storing spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste at an interim storage facility in Nevada, no later than November 30, 1999; Establish an intermodal transfer facility at Caliente, Nevada, by November 30, 1999, to transfer material from rail facilities to heavy-haul trucks for transport to the interim storage facility; Enter into a benefits agreement with Lincoln County, Nevada (the site of the transfer facility), and make payments to the county under that agreement as specified in the bill; and Continue site characterization activities at the proposed permanent repository site at Yucca Mountain, also in Nevada. In addition, the bill would authorize the appropriation of such sums as are necessary to establish a pilot program to decommission and decontaminate an experimental reactor owned by the University of Arkansas. While S. 1271 would, by itself, establish no new enforceable duties on state, local, or tribal governments, it is possible that the construction and operation of an interim storage facility as required by the bill would increase the cost to the state of complying with existing federal requirements. CBO has not yet determined whether these costs would be considered the direct costs of a mandate for the purposes of Public Law 104-4. Interim Storage Facility.--The state of Nevada and its constituent local governments would incur additional costs as a result of the interim storage facility required by this bill. CBO expects that state spending would increase by as much as $20 million per year until shipments to the facility begin in 1999 and $5 million per year between that time and the time that the permanent facility at Yucca Mountain begins operations. This additional spending would support a number of activities, including emergency response planning and training, escort of waste shipments, and environmental monitoring. In addition, spending by Nevada counties for similar activities would probably increase, but by much smaller amounts. Not all of this spending would be for the purpose of complying with federal requirements. These costs are similar to those that the state would eventually incur under current law as a result of the permanent repository planned for Yucca Mountain. DOE currently does not expect to begin receiving material at a permanent repository until at least 2010, while under S. 1271 it would begin to receive material at an interim facility in 1999. As a result, the state would have to respond to the shipment and storage of waste at least ten years sooner. Further, state costs would increase because it would have to plan for two facilities. The state could incur substantial additional costs relating to road construction and maintenance as a result of the shipment of waste by heavy-haul truck from the transfer facility in Caliente to the interim storage facility. Based on information provided by DOE, however, CBO expects that the federal government would pay most of these costs. Federal Payments to State and Local Government.--S. 1271 would authorize payments to Lincoln County, Nevada, of $2.5 million in each year before waste is shipped to the interim facility and $5 million annually after shipments begin. In addition, the bill identifies several parcels of land that would be conveyed to Lincoln County by the federal government. The state government and other governments in Nevada would lose payments from the federal government if S. 1271 is enacted, however. The bill would eliminate section 116 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which authorizes payments to the state of Nevada and to local governments within the state. Section 116 currently authorizes DOE to make grants to the state and to affected local governments to enable them to participate in evaluating and developing a site for a permanent repository and to offset any negative impacts of such a site on those governments. Further, that section authorizes DOE to make payments to the state and to local governments equal to amounts they would have received in taxes if all activities at the repository site were subject to state and local taxes. In recent years, Congress has appropriated amounts ranging from $12 million to $15 million per year under this section for Nevada and for local governments in the state. No funds have been specifically appropriated for these grants in fiscal year 1996, but DOE is authorized to provide funds from other appropriations. S. 1271 would continue the provision in current law that directs DOE to provide technical assistance and funds to state and local governments and Indian tribes through whose jurisdictions radioactive material would be transported. This assistance would primarily cover training of public safety officials. In addition, DOE would be required to conduct a program of public education in those states. The amount of costs reimbursable under these provisions is very uncertain and would depend largely on the routes selected by DOE for transport of material to the storage sites. Based on information provided by state officials, we believe that states would be unlikely to spend their own funds on these activities unless reimbursed by the federal government. If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be pleased to provide them. Sincerely, June E. O'Neill, Director.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, with the notable exception of the National Park Foundation, I am aware of no national conservation organizations whose actual cost of conducting business is less than 10 percent of their entire operating program. In other words, Mr. President, donations made to the National Park Service through the Foundation are actually used to enhance the operation of programs conducted by the National Park Service. The Foundation is governed by a board of distinguished civic and business leaders committed to helping the national parks. By law, the Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, serves as the chairman of the board, and the Director of the Park Service, Roger Kennedy, serves as the secretary of the board. The Foundation is a partnership between the public and private sectors. It provides direct support for park units through a competitive program that grants venture capital to seed creative efforts to conserve park resources. With the help of private partners, the National Park Foundation has made grants of over $10 million to support projects in our national parks in the last 5 years. I know of no other organization, Mr. President, which claims to support our National Park System that has a record that even comes close to this achievement. The National Park Foundation does not engage in activities normally associated with lobbying, and as a result it does not enjoy the notoriety or the vast fundraising programs that benefit other environmentally motivated organizations or environmental causes. Unfortunately, not many people even know about the existence of the National Park Foundation. Mr. President, administrative requests and congressional appropriations are simply not keeping pace with increased visitations and other demands placed on the National Park System. With the current demands on Congress to balance the budget and eliminate the Federal deficit, it would be more and more difficult for Congress to authorize sufficient funding for our national parks. As a result, there is a great need for additional support to protect, conserve and enhance our national parks. Mr. President, the National Park Foundation is well positioned to take on this important task. This bill contains amendments which will authorize the National Park Foundation to: First, engage in business relationships with appropriate private partners to raise revenue for the National Park System similar to the authority Congress has already granted the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the National Forest Foundation. Second, it would operate similarly to the U.S. Olympic Committee, where once a sponsor has been approved by the United States Olympic Committee, moneys are being generated from the private sector partners for the benefit of the Olympics. This bill, when enacted, will allow the Foundation to optimize and capture for our national parks the economic value of selective, appropriate sponsorships of national parks similar to, as I have said, the authority Congress has granted to the United States Olympic Committee. As commercial advertisers have long demonstrated, the national parks have great commercial value. Each year advertising, publishing, commercial broadcasts, moviemaking, merchandising and other commercial activity worth hundreds of millions of dollars is made on the intellectual property and other assets of the parks with virtually no return to the Park Service. A change is needed to enable the Park Service, through the National Park Foundation, to capture some of that potential income through licensing and other marketing agreements. Mr. President, my bill provides safeguards which will negate any untoward, inappropriate commercialization of our parks; however, it will allow new revenue-generation opportunities outside the parks in partnership with private enterprise. It is private enterprise that will ultimately provide additional funding in the billions of dollars for resource management and infrastructure repair required for park facilities throughout our Nation. If we do not count the damage to the C&O canal, the current backlog in maintenance and facility repair for our parks is in excess of $4 billion. It is going to take literally hundreds of millions of dollars to reestablish resource management and visitor service programs which have been deferred servicewide. According to the National Park Service, employee housing faces a backlog of $500 million. Mr. President, it is apparent that we cannot even afford to take care of the caretakers, much less properly address the needs of the National Park System. Enactment of this legislation will provide an economically cost- efficient and accountable program by which the Foundation can begin the long quest to address the needs of our National Park System with the assistance of private sector resources. Mr. President, the concept is exciting. The results will surely contribute to the future financial stability of our Park System as well as the protection of those national treasures we described as our national parks. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. Together we can make it possible for the National Park Foundation to play the role originally intended by Congress back in 1967, making a significant contribution to preserving America's national parks through private partnerships between Government, private business, and individuals.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today and along with my colleagues, Senators Johnston, Bennett, and Kempthorne to introduce a bill which, when enacted, will generate as much as $100 million annually from the private sector in support of our national parks. This legislation contains a number of amendments to the National Park Foundation Act, which I am pleased to say will revitalize and expand the scope of operations of the Foundation. An act of Congress created the National Park Foundation in 1967 as the official nonprofit partner of the National Park Service. The Foundation provides a vehicle for donors who want to contribute to national parks with the assurance that gifts will be carefully managed and used wholly and exclusively for the purpose specified by the donor. The Foundation provides a simple and direct way for individuals, corporations, and private foundations to help conserve and preserve the natural, cultural, and historical value of the national parks for the enjoyment of future generations. Mr. President, there are a number of organizations who claim to support our national parks, and to some extent they do. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that the parks ever receive any monetary or tangible benefits from these organizations. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have three pages of the National Park Foundation's annual report printed in the Record which will show some of the benefits the Foundation provides.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, the language agreed to by the conferees and the President directs the Secretary to: first, maintain the land base of the 1992 Tongass Land Management Plan--1.7 million acres--for timber for 1 year; and second, release the enjoined AWRTA sales. The President may waive either or both of these requirements. If he so chooses, he triggers a $110 million appropriation over 4 years--fiscal years 1996-99--for timber worker employment, community development, and to replace lost timber sale receipts. I want to extend to my colleague, Senator Stevens, well deserved credit for protecting the people of southeast Alaska and penalizing the administration for not meeting its obligations under the Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990 to sustain the timber dependent communities of southeast Alaska. And I want to thank all of my colleagues, particularly Senator Hatfield and Senator Gorton, for standing by us in the fact of Clinton administration recalcitrance, ignorance about the conditions in Alaska, and extreme prejudice about sustainable forest management. Like the Sierra Club earlier this week, the Clinton administration appears opposed to any forest management on the national forests. I suppose this should not be terribly surprising, given the high number of former Sierra Club lobbyists in the Clinton administration. At least the current lobbyists at the Sierra Club had the honesty to publicly announce their total opposition to all timber harvesting. I am going to be equally candid. My bottom-line goal over the next year is going to be to make it as difficult and painful as possible for the administration to complete its draft Tongass Land Management Plan preferred alternative and suspend the 1.7 million acre land base requirement that we have just enacted. It would unacceptably reduce the productive forest land base and throw workers out of jobs and families in the streets. The draft TLMP contains alternatives that maintain the 1.7 million acre land base and allowable sales quantity. One of these alternatives can and should be selected. Let me make a few additional points so that there is no confusion about what we are doing today and so that all of my colleagues have a complete context for the current and coming debate. And the debate will definitely continue. The purpose of today's amendment is to penalize the Clinton administration for failing to meet its multiple use obligations under the Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990, and to make it as difficult as possible for the administration to shirk these obligations in the future. The administration has been--and, under our amendment, will continue to be--required to seek to meet market demand for Tongass forest products and thereby protect southeast Alaska communities under the provisions of the 1990 act. All along, what we have wanted to do was to protect the forest land base so a sustainable industry and associated communities can exist in southeast Alaska. We can't make the administration--particularly this administration--manage the forest. Our hope is that we can at least protect the landbase, and to the greatest extent possible we have done this. In my oversight of the Forest Service's development of a new Tongass Land Management Plan I have been flatly appalled by: first, the lack of sound scientific information involved in the effort; second, the poor credibility of the socio-economic impact analysis conducted; third, the offering of more multiple-use promises that can't be kept; and fourth, the rush to complete this effort which is, in part, politically driven. Indeed, the White House press office's statement today that the President would use the suspension, without even consulting with the Forest Service is evidence of crass politicization of the resource agency. Last week, we had an 8-hour hearing on this draft plan. Here are the transcripts; I would be happy to share them with anyone who wants to read them to see how little the Forest Service knows about the resources and the people of the Tongass. The TLMP uses voodoo economics to evaluate the effects of weird science employed to justify Greenpeace politics in southeast Alaska. We will proceed with our oversight of the TLMP process to continue to press the Forest Service to do a professionally credible job in developing a final plan. This is important because nothing requires the Forest Service or the President to ignore the requirements of common sense and multiple use and reduce the forest land base. There are TLMP alternatives which would maintain the land base. The challenge today's amendment lays before Bill Clinton is to manage a Federal forest resource wisely to protect the environment, provide jobs, and sustain communities without falling back as a substitute to the old, large Federal grants programs of the past. We sincerely hope the President doesn't rely on a failed policy of large Federal grants to shore up a failed policy of forest preservation that has reduced the health of our forests nationwide. The challenge to Phil Janik, our regional forester, is to get a lot better data before he selects an approach which costs the taxpayers $110 million. But at least the people of southeast Alaska will not be penalized if he fails to meet this responsibility. Janik is a $110 million man. His decisions, if not wisely made, will take $110 million from the U.S. Treasury, assuming the administration does not eliminate his authority to make a decision.

Mr. MURKOWSKI

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today and along with my colleagues, Senators Johnston, Bennett, and Kempthorne to introduce a bill which, when enacted, will generate as much as $100 million annually from the private sector in support of our national parks. This legislation contains a number of amendments to the National Park Foundation Act, which I am pleased to say will revitalize and expand the scope of operations of the Foundation. An act of Congress created the National Park Foundation in 1967 as the official nonprofit partner of the National Park Service. The Foundation provides a vehicle for donors who want to contribute to national parks with the assurance that gifts will be carefully managed and used wholly and exclusively for the purpose specified by the donor. The Foundation provides a simple and direct way for individuals, corporations, and private foundations to help conserve and preserve the natural, cultural, and historical value of the national parks for the enjoyment of future generations. Mr. President, there are a number of organizations who claim to support our national parks, and to some extent they do. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that the parks ever receive any monetary or tangible benefits from these organizations. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have three pages of the National Park Foundation's annual report printed in the Record which will show some of the benefits the Foundation provides.

Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, with the notable exception of the National Park Foundation, I am aware of no national conservation organizations whose actual cost of conducting business is less than 10 percent of their entire operating program. In other words, Mr. President, donations made to the National Park Service through the Foundation are actually used to enhance the operation of programs conducted by the National Park Service. The Foundation is governed by a board of distinguished civic and business leaders committed to helping the national parks. By law, the Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, serves as the chairman of the board, and the Director of the Park Service, Roger Kennedy, serves as the secretary of the board. The Foundation is a partnership between the public and private sectors. It provides direct support for park units through a competitive program that grants venture capital to seed creative efforts to conserve park resources. With the help of private partners, the National Park Foundation has made grants of over $10 million to support projects in our national parks in the last 5 years. I know of no other organization, Mr. President, which claims to support our National Park System that has a record that even comes close to this achievement. The National Park Foundation does not engage in activities normally associated with lobbying, and as a result it does not enjoy the notoriety or the vast fundraising programs that benefit other environmentally motivated organizations or environmental causes. Unfortunately, not many people even know about the existence of the National Park Foundation. Mr. President, administrative requests and congressional appropriations are simply not keeping pace with increased visitations and other demands placed on the National Park System. With the current demands on Congress to balance the budget and eliminate the Federal deficit, it would be more and more difficult for Congress to authorize sufficient funding for our national parks. As a result, there is a great need for additional support to protect, conserve and enhance our national parks. Mr. President, the National Park Foundation is well positioned to take on this important task. This bill contains amendments which will authorize the National Park Foundation to: First, engage in business relationships with appropriate private partners to raise revenue for the National Park System similar to the authority Congress has already granted the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the National Forest Foundation. Second, it would operate similarly to the U.S. Olympic Committee, where once a sponsor has been approved by the United States Olympic Committee, moneys are being generated from the private sector partners for the benefit of the Olympics. This bill, when enacted, will allow the Foundation to optimize and capture for our national parks the economic value of selective, appropriate sponsorships of national parks similar to, as I have said, the authority Congress has granted to the United States Olympic Committee. As commercial advertisers have long demonstrated, the national parks have great commercial value. Each year advertising, publishing, commercial broadcasts, moviemaking, merchandising and other commercial activity worth hundreds of millions of dollars is made on the intellectual property and other assets of the parks with virtually no return to the Park Service. A change is needed to enable the Park Service, through the National Park Foundation, to capture some of that potential income through licensing and other marketing agreements. Mr. President, my bill provides safeguards which will negate any untoward, inappropriate commercialization of our parks; however, it will allow new revenue-generation opportunities outside the parks in partnership with private enterprise. It is private enterprise that will ultimately provide additional funding in the billions of dollars for resource management and infrastructure repair required for park facilities throughout our Nation. If we do not count the damage to the C&O canal, the current backlog in maintenance and facility repair for our parks is in excess of $4 billion. It is going to take literally hundreds of millions of dollars to reestablish resource management and visitor service programs which have been deferred servicewide. According to the National Park Service, employee housing faces a backlog of $500 million. Mr. President, it is apparent that we cannot even afford to take care of the caretakers, much less properly address the needs of the National Park System. Enactment of this legislation will provide an economically cost- efficient and accountable program by which the Foundation can begin the long quest to address the needs of our National Park System with the assistance of private sector resources. Mr. President, the concept is exciting. The results will surely contribute to the future financial stability of our Park System as well as the protection of those national treasures we described as our national parks. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. Together we can make it possible for the National Park Foundation to play the role originally intended by Congress back in 1967, making a significant contribution to preserving America's national parks through private partnerships between Government, private business, and individuals.