J. Thurmond

Mr. THURMOND

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. THURMOND. Yes, we also yield back our time.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, we accept the amendment as modified, and urge the Senate to adopt this amendment. I state for the Record that this amendment offered by the Senator from Michigan has been modified, and in accepting the amendment as modified, it is not the intention of the committee to predetermine the outcome of the Senate debate that will take place on advice and consent to ratification of these two treaties. The committee is merely stating that overall, if the treaties were to be ratified by all parties and fully implemented by all parties, it would be in the national security interests of all the signatories. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has not yet reported either the START II nor the Chemical Weapons Convention to the Senate. As a result, a full debate and examination of the treaties on the floor has not taken place. A number of concerns need to be fully aired with regard to ratification and implementation of these treaties when the Senate determines that it is time to provide its advice and consent to ratification. Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I understand the Senator from Ohio wished to be recorded on the amendment, and I believe the Senator from Ohio is not in favor of the amendment, if the Chair will put that question again. Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, we will yield back our time. I understand the other side is willing to yield back its time.

Mr. THURMOND. The Senator just wants to be recorded. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I yield such time as the Senator may need.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, as I understand, the Senator does not want a vote?

Mr. THURMOND

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, again, I urge all Senators who have amendments to the defense authorization bill to come to the floor and offer those amendments. We want to finish this bill today. We do not want to stay here until 12, 1, or 2 o'clock tonight. I urge all Senators--and I hope the staffs will tell them if they are here, and I hope the offices will listen and let the Senators know--to come and offer their amendments, if they have any. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I understand it is acceptable on both sides.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THURMOND. Yes.

Mr. THURMOND. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise to clarify the intent of section 3135 of the Senate's 1996 National Defense Authorization Act which provides $50 million for the preparation of hydronuclear experiments below a 4 pound TNT explosive equivalent at the Nevada test site. This provision does [[Page S 12547]] not authorize hydronuclear experiments. So there is no problem with this part of Senator Exon's amendment. Furthermore, this provision does not amend or repeal the requirements of section 507 of Public Law 102-377, which is also known as the Hatfield-Exon-Mitchell amendment on nuclear weapon testing. The amendment proposed by Senator Exon basically invokes the restrictions of the 1992 Hatfield-Exon-Mitchell amendment on U.S. nuclear weapons testing. It is my understanding that the Hatfield amendment was not meant to encompass hydronuclear experiments under 4 pounds. Therefore, as long as the proposed Exon amendment is not construed to make low yield hydronuclear experiments subject to the Hatfield amendment's ban on all nuclear weapons testing after September 30, 1996, I would have no problem with the second portion of Senator Exon's amendment. I would like to make some further remarks pertaining to section 3135. The Senate passed this provision as an element of the Thurmond-Domenici amendment to the 1996 National Defense Authorization Act on August 4, 1995. On that same day, after vigorous debate, the Senate rejected an attempt to remove this provision from the bill by a vote of 56 to 44. I maintained then, and I maintain now, that this was a prudent decision. I do so in spite of the fact that 1 week after the Senate vote on this subject, the President called for a zero yield comprehensive test ban treaty. I say this because hydronuclear experiments are the single remaining tool available to the United States that is relevant to assessing potential safety problems which may arise in the fission trigger, or primary stage, of our nuclear weapons as they approach and exceed their original design lifetimes. These are not tests of nuclear weapons output. These are not tests aimed at development of new weapons. They are experiments aimed at primarily assessing the safety of he unboosted implosion of the fissle core assembly from a nuclear weapon. Now, during our debate on this subject, the executive summary of a report of hydronuclear experiments by the JASON committee came up and was reported into the Record. This report has been represented to be a purely scientific study, but a careful reading shows that its conclusions are based on preconceived politics and policy. The report concludes that we don't need to do hydronuclear experiments under 4 pounds. Although the JASON report says that low yield hydronuclears were useful for safety assessments, it concludes that we don't need to do hydronuclears because the JASON's don't anticipate safety problems with the current stockpile. This is simply an unsupported assertion. We found out some other interesting things about the JASON report after the debate. First, we asked DOE for the full classified JASON report. We were told that it was not finished and that it would be available in 3 or 4 weeks. Evidently, the nuclear weapons laboratory officials with the ultimate responsibility for the stockpile were not given an opportunity to review the JASON report before the President's announcement on a zero yield comprehensive test ban treaty. Second, we found out that the individuals selected for this JASON committee were not experts in nuclear weapons and that they called on the services of four current and former nuclear weapons laboratory experts to serve as consultants to the JASON members. Why did DOE not go to its own experts to begin with? So we talked to the two lab experts who dealt with the JASON's. They both agreed that tests in the 500 ton range would be of greatest value to the U.S. nuclear weapons program. On hydronuclear experiments below 4 pounds, these two had a genuine technical disagreement. The expert who found hydronuclear experiments to be of value told us that his material was dropped from the report by the JASON's chairman. He told us that his material ``wound up on the cutting room floor.'' Upon further inquiry we found that the chairman of this particular JASON committee is an expert in high energy physics. His resume also says that he is an arms control specialist. In fact, he has been a Director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, DC. He is a close adviser to Secretary O'Leary. Why should the nuclear weapons experts from our Government-owned laboratories have to have their work filtered through individuals with a clear track record in the arms control arena? This has not been the case in the 50-year history of the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Last year I alerted this body to my concerns about the fact that the Secretary of Energy had surrounded herself with many career anti- nuclear advocates. Nothing seems to have changed. Mr. President, this Senator does not believe that this is an objective way to form a committee nor to elucidate expert opinions on a subject of such import to national security. We then asked DOE for the results of the DOE stockpile confidence meeting that took place at STRATCOM in Omaha from the 1st to the 3d of June of this year with the nuclear weapons laboratories participating. It turns out that the position of the nuclear weapons laboratories at this meeting concluded that good confidence in the safety and reliability of the enduring stockpile could be maintained with a combination of 500-ton tests and the science based stockpile stewardship and management program. If 500-ton tests were excluded, then we could retain good confidence in weapon safety with hydronuclear experiments and the science based stockpile stewardship and management program. Without 500-ton tests and hydronuclears, the laboratories concluded that there would be a period of vulnerability in our stockpile confidence between the end of testing and the realization of the goals of the science based stewardship and management program . You will not see these conclusions discussed publicly by the administration. I caution my colleagues to watch this situation closely and not to allow the administration to trade real declines in stockpile confidence for potential gains on the arms control area. This concludes my remarks. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that this amendment be adopted.

Mr. THURMOND

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, this amendment would adjust the funding for civilian personnel under strength in the Air Force Reserve. The Department of Defense made an error in verifying the degree to which various accounts were overfunded. In response to my inquiry, the Department reconsidered its report and determined the figure for the Air Force Reserve should be $3 million in reductions, not $13 million as previously reported. This amendment would restore $10 million of the $13 million to the Air Force Reserve and reduce DOD funding by $10 million. I thank the Chair, and yield the floor.

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise now to urge Senators who have amendments to the Defense authorization bill to come to the floor and take up their amendments. We are supposed to pass this bill today. If they wait until this afternoon, then they are all stacked in at the last minute and it is going to be very difficult to handle. I urge them to come on out. We have been here all morning starting at 10 o'clock, and we have approved a few things. But there is a lot more to be done. I want them to come and take up the amendments and let us get them acted on one way or the other. Thank you, Mr. President. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THURMOND

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, is that clear now? The time he uses will be charged to him when he offers this amendment and not to the present amendment.

Mr. THURMOND. On the question of time, how does the Senator want his time charged? Is he going to offer an amendment? Does he want time charged to himself?

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.