Inland Empire Regional Water Recycling Initiative

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Spent Nuclear Fuel Control and Accounting Act of 2006. I am pleased to be joined by the Senior Senator from Vermont, Mr. Leahy, in introducing this legislation. In the other body, our colleague from Vermont, Congressman Sanders, is introducing a companion measure. This legislation is designed to improve the safety and security of spent nuclear fuel generated by our Nation's nuclear powerplants.

Approximately 2,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel are generated by the Nation's 103 nuclear powerplants each year. Spent nuclear fuel is no longer able to generate power but is still intensely radioactive and continues to generate heat for tens of thousands of years. Radiation produced by the fuel can kill a person within minutes if they are directly exposed.

Terrorist attacks in the U.S. have heightened public concern generally about whether this highly radioactive material could be stolen and used maliciously. Although the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, argues that spent nuclear fuel is ``self-protecting'' because of its high radioactivity, the potential for harm to human health and the environment warrants close attention to the control and accounting of this material.

I am introducing this legislation because there have been several instances of lost spent nuclear fuel at operating plants in the past few years, including in my own home State. Such losses have eroded public confidence in the job the NRC is doing. Following the loss of spent fuel rod fragments at Vermont Yankee in 2004, I requested that GAO study the issue of how the NRC controls such material. In its April 2005 report, the GAO recommended that the NRC establish requirements for the control of individual fuel rods and fragments and develop inspection procedures to verify plants' compliance.

NRC currently has no regulations that specifically deal with the tracking and recordkeeping of spent nuclear fuel of this type. While the NRC generally has regulations requiring plant operators to maintain records of their spent nuclear fuel they do not specify how individual fuel rods and fragments should be tracked. Additionally, the NRC requires plant operators to inventory spent fuel at least once a year, but does not specify how that inventory should be conducted. Because of this lack of specificity in its regulations, there is considerable variation among nuclear powerplants in how regulations are implemented. Plus, the NRC no longer monitors plants' compliance with its tracking and accounting regulations.

While the NRC has been working administratively to address the issues identified in the GAO report, the proposed legislation would require the NRC to more effectively control and account for spent nuclear fuel. The NRC needs to redouble its efforts to shore up public confidence in its regulatory efforts. This is a difficult task, but one that is critically important.

This bill will focus on the safe operation and management of existing nuclear powerplants. The NRC and the nuclear industry are planning for a ``nuclear renaissance'' with the construction of new nuclear plants. The NRC estimates that it will receive 18 new license requests between now and the year 2012. But, we must maintain continued oversight over existing plants and pay particular attention to the safe management of spent nuclear fuel. The public needs to be confident that the current system operates well, or they will likely not accept a new generation of plants.

The Spent Nuclear Fuel Control and Accounting Act of 2006 directs NRC to develop regulations which would improve the current system of control and accounting for spent nuclear fuel and would help prevent incidents like the one which occurred at Vermont Yankee.

In the case of Vermont Yankee, operated by Entergy, the plant's operators discovered that two pieces of a radioactive fuel rod were missing from the plant's storage facilities on April 21, 2004. During a scheduled fuel outage, the plant conducted a special inspection requested by the NRC to document the location of its fuel rods, both spent and unspent.

The documentation of the pieces' location was requested by the NRC as part of a follow up to the loss of two complete spent fuel rods at the Millstone plant in Connecticut in 2000. At Vermont Yankee, the missing pieces were 7 and 17 inches long, and came from a fuel rod sent to the Vermont Yankee plant by General Electric in 1979 that arrived broken. When the rod broke, the pieces were placed in a lead bucket at the bottom of the spent fuel pool, in which low-level waste was periodically also stored. Later it was learned that a special storage container was ordered from General Electric to house these pieces, and that they were stored in a different part of the fuel pool.

The NRC was involved in Entergy's efforts to use a remote-control camera to see if the misplaced rod pieces were among the spent fuel rods in the plant's spent fuel pool. Entergy also reviewed paper records to see if two missing fuel rods from the plant were shipped to waste storage facilities in South Carolina or the State of Washington. The spent fuel rods were eventually located on July 15, 2004, after a search in which Entergy estimates company employees and outside contractors had spent between 9,000 and 10,000 hours involved in the search.

A similar event occurred at the Millstone nuclear powerplant in Connecticut in 2000 and at the Humboldt Bay plant in California in July 2004. Pacific Gas and Electric officials searched for three missing uranium components of a used nuclear fuel rod in the reactor pool at the decommissioned Humboldt Bay nuclear powerplant near Eureka, CA. Each of the pieces of the missing Humboldt Bay fuel rod is 18 inches long, has the width of a pencil and contains uranium fuel encased in steel. The rods from the Humboldt Bay and Millstone plants are still missing. The Millstone plant paid a $288,000 fine for the loss of its fuel.

When the Millstone incident occurred, the NRC said that fuel rods had never before gone missing in the history of commercial nuclear power in the United States. While I know that the materials at Vermont Yankee were found to be missing due in part to a special inspection the NRC instituted after Millstone, the sad fact is that fuel again went missing. I do not want missing fuel to become the norm. It is not enough to tell the public that we ``think'' it is likely that highly radioactive material went to storage. Certainly it is poor government management not to look carefully at how the

utilities conducted these searches for missing fuel rods, draw out lessons, develop best management practices, and safeguard and protect the existing paper trail we have for the waste stored at our Nation's nuclear power plants. We must improve our nuclear materials accounting system, and my legislation is the first step in doing so.

This legislation calls for NRC to pay special attention to loose individual spent fuel rods and rod fragments like those lost at the Vermont Yankee plant. It requires NRC to report when loose fuel rods and fragments result and requires NRC to conduct an annual inspection to make sure that plants are complying with waste tracking requirements. Additionally, the bill instructs NRC to develop best management practices for the safe storage of individual rods and fragments and for the inventory of spent nuclear fuel. The legislation will require NRC to modernize its data management systems by developing an updated electronic system for storing data and for tracking the location of spent nuclear fuel. The creation of an electronic database of spent fuel storage records would help secure this important information from aging plants that are being uprated and relicensed and also require the new fleet of plants to use a uniform electronic system. Finally, this bill would track the movement of spent nuclear fuel onsite at nuclear powerplants and offsite to other facilities by requiring that manifests indicate whether shipments contain fuel rods or fragments.

I believe that this bill will be an important step towards improving security related to one of the most hazardous materials made by humans--spent nuclear fuel. This bill would increase the scrutiny on the tracking of this material and ensure that spent nuclear fuel remains safely stored in appropriate facilities and does not end up in the wrong hands.

I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to authorize water recycling and other water supply projects by the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, the Cucamonga Valley Water District, the Western Municipal Water District, the Yucaipa Valley Water District, and the City of Corona Water Utility. These projects will produce approximately 161,000 acre-feet of new water annually in one of the most rapidly growing regions in the United States, reducing the need for imported water from the Colorado River and northern California through the California Water Project.

This legislation is intended to be the companion to two House of Representatives bills: H.R. 802, sponsored by David Dreier, Grace Napolitano, Ken Calvert, Joe Baca, and Gary Miller; and H.R. 1008, sponsored by Ken Calvert, Jerry Lewis, Joe Baca and Darrell Issa. H.R. 802 and H.R. 1008 have each passed the House of Representatives twice, in both this Congress and the previous Congress.

Environmental groups such as the Mono Lake Committee, Environmental Defense, Clean Water and Natural Resources Defense Council strongly support the water recycling and groundwater remediation projects in this bill. Business leaders such as Southern Cal Edison and Building Industry Association also support these projects.

I would like to describe the projects in this bill:

The Inland Empire Regional Water Recycling Initiative would authorize two project components. The first will be constructed by the Inland Empire Utilities Agency--IEUA--and will produce approximately 90,000 acre feet of new water annually. The second of these projects, to be constructed by the Cucamonga Valley Water District--CVWD--will produce an additional 5,000 acre feet of new water annually.

The Inland Empire Regional Water Recycling Initiative has the support of all member agencies of IEUA, as well as the water agencies downstream in Orange County. IEUA encompasses approximately 242 square miles and serves the cities of Chino, Chino Hills, Fontana--through the Fontana Water Company--Ontario, Upland, Montclair, Rancho Cucamonga-- through the Cucamonga Valley Water District--and the Monte Vista Water District.

The next project is Western Municipal Water District's Riverside- Corona Feeder. Western provides supplemental water to a 510 square mile area of growing western Riverside County and serves a population of more than one-half million people. As a member of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California--MWD--Western provides supplemental water to the cities of Corona, Norco, and Riverside and the water agencies of Elsinore Valley and Rancho California. Western also serves customers in the unincorporated areas of El Sobrante, Eagle Valley, Temescal Creek, Woodcrest, Lake Mathews, and March Air Reserve Base.

The purpose of the Riverside--Corona Feeder water supply project is to capture and store new water in wet years in order to increase firm water supplies, reduce water costs, and improve water quality. The project will include about 20 wells and 28 miles of pipeline. Studies have shown the safe annual yield of the aquifer is about 40,000 acre- feet.

The project would allow locally stored water to replace imported water from Colorado River and the State project sources in times of drought or other shortages. The project proposes to manage the ground water levels by the construction of ground water wells and pumping capacity to deliver the pumped ground water supply to water users. A new water conveyance pipeline is also proposed that will serve western Riverside County.

There are also very important environmental remediation aspects of the project. Up to half of the wells could be placed within plumes of VOCs and perchlorate. These wells would remediate about 20,000 acre- feet of currently contaminated water per year.

Next, the city of Corona Water Recycling and Reuse Project will consist of three reservoirs and two pump stations along with retrofitted user irrigation systems.

Additionally, 27 miles of pipelines will separate recycled water from drinking water. The reclamation system will enable the city of Corona to provide recycled water to parks, landscape maintenance districts, schools, landscaped freeway frontages and any other project that does not require potable water. It will also reduce the need for increased water imports and construction of additional drinking water infrastructure.

Finally, the Yucaipa Valley Water Supply Renewal Project will maximize the various water resources in the Yucaipa Valley. Federal funds would be used to provide federal assistance for planning, designing, and constructing the new Yucaipa Valley Regional Water Filtration Facility that is part of the renewal project. The new facility will contain a reverse osmosis system and a brine pipeline to remove salinity, contaminants, and organic compounds from the water supply in the Yucaipa Valley. The brine pipeline will extend nearly 20 miles to the existing Santa Ana Regional Interceptor brine pipeline.

This project will minimize the amount of water imported from northern California, maximize the use of higher quality water, reduce withdrawals from ground water supplies, and provide a long-term, drought-proof water supply. The full project is expected to reduce demands on the California State Water Project by over 4 billion gallons per year, which is a sufficient quantity of water for 27,000 families.

I want to say a few words about the importance of water recycling projects.

The development of recycled water can bring significant amounts of water ``on line'' in a relatively short period of time. Recycled water provides our State and region with the ability to ``stretch'' existing water supplies significantly and in so doing, minimize conflict and address the many needs that exist. According to the State of California's Recycled Water Task Force, water recycling is a critical part of California's water future with an estimated 1.5 million acre- feet of new supplies being developed over the next 25 years.

Water recycling is also a bipartisan initiative in California, as witnessed by the many Republican and Democratic House cosponsors of the House versions of the bill I introduce today.

It also has a long history. In 1991, the Secretary of the Interior in President George H.W. Bush's administration, Manual Lujan, recognized that California would need an alternative water supply source because it was receiving more water from the Colorado River than its allocation.

In a bold and farsighted maneuver, in August 1991, Secretary Lujan launched the Southern California Water Initiative, a program to evaluate and study the feasibility of water reclamation projects. Mr. Lujan's vision was to build replacement water capacity to offset the anticipated Colorado River water supply reductions.

Congress, in 1992, was completing work on major water legislation saw the wisdom of the Lujan initiative too. Lujan's proposal, a year after it was first announced, became title XVI, the Bureau of Reclamation water recycling program that today serves the entire West, not just California. Today, water recycling is the essential water supply element in Albuquerque, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, Tucson, El Paso, San Antonio, Portland, and other western metropolitan areas.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill to help meet the West's water supply needs and to reduce our dependence on the Colorado River. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I introduce to you a bill to prevent the imposition of global taxes on the United States. The current efforts of the United Nations and other international organizations to develop, advocate, endorse, promote, and publicize proposals to raise revenue by instituting international taxes are unacceptable.

The United Nations is not a sovereign nation and, therefore, does not have the legal capacity to levy taxes. Furthermore, paying taxes to an international organization like the UN would impair global commerce, hinder the defense capabilities of the United States, and continue to line the pockets of an organization that has historically been replete with mismanagement and corruption, especially in recent years. In order to avoid these consequences, the bill I bring before you will withhold 20 percent of dues from the United Nations and other international organizations if they continue to promote global taxes. Its passage will help preserve the sovereignty of our Nation and save American taxpayers from potentially paying billions of dollars every year to international organizations.

The United Nations' record of developing and advocating global taxation goes back for more than a decade. Usually the organization's efforts have been done quietly so as not to elicit the ire of the United States. However, in 1996 Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali delivered a speech at Oxford University in which he openly embraced the concept of global taxes and authoritarian world government. Specifically, the Secretary General expressed a desire for the United Nations to ``not be under the daily financial will of the member states.'' Though the U.N. had tried to circumvent the Security Council and avoid member state scrutiny for many years by borrowing from international financial institutions, assuming control of bonds issued by Member States, and imposing fees on an extensive range of transactions, goods and services, this was the first time the concept of global taxation was so explicitly advocated.

In response to the United Nations' actions, Senator Bob Dole and Representative Gerald Solomon introduced bills in both Houses of Congress in January of 1996 to put a stop to the United Nations' antics. These bills prohibited any voluntary or assessed contributions from the United States to the United Nations if the United Nations continued to develop and promote proposals for international taxes and fees. That legislation passed through the 104th and the 105th Congresses to become public law.

Still, the United Nations continued to pursue global taxation. Later in 1996, the United Nations Economic and Social Council fully debated international taxation. After that, a United Nations Development Programme research project resulted in the publishing of a text entitled ``The Tobin Tax,'' which proposed a currency transaction tax. Global taxation was discussed in ``The Human Development Report'' in 1999 as well as at the United Nations Preparatory Committee for the International Conference on Financing for Development in 2001. Also in 2001, Ernesto Zedillo published a report which concluded ``there is a genuine need to establish, by international consensus, stable and contractual new sources of multilateral finance.'' Dialog arose at the Conference on Sharing Global Prosperity in Helsinki in 2003. In 2004, the United Nations University-World Institute for Development Economics Research issued a study on global taxation.

Recently, the 2005 ``Human Development Report'' discussed proposals to levy international taxes in order to fund the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals. Some of the taxes the United Nations proposed in this report were taxes on aviation fuel, an airline passenger tax, and a currency transaction tax like the Tobin tax. At other points in time the U.N. has considered a global environmental levy, an ocean freight tax on international trade, and a military expenditures and arms tax.

Innovative development financing mechanisms were the primary topics of discussion at a conference held in Paris on February 28 and March 1 of 2006. As a result of this conference and other discussions, various nations, most notably France, are already implementing an international tax on airline travel, with the approval of Kofi Annan. Plans for global taxes on currency transactions, energy use, and United States companies are also being considered. An official U.N.-sponsored book, ``New Sources of Development Finance,'' says that a proposed tax on oil, gas, coal and other carbon-based fuels could produce $750 billion a year in revenue for the U.N. and other global purposes.

We have frequently reminded the United Nations of our sentiments regarding global taxation after legislation formally passed through Congress in 1996 and 1998. Recently, on August 30, 2005, the U.S. representative to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, clearly stated ``the United States does not accept global aid targets or global taxes.'' Shortly after, on September 13, 2005, 16 Senators joined with me in sending a letter to Kofi Annan which reiterated Mr. Bolton's message. Still, the United Nations has continued to research and promote different forms of international taxation.

Since the United Nations is not listening to the United States, now it is time for Congress to back up our words. The bill I am introducing along with 31 colleagues states that if the United Nations or other international organizations continue to pursue global taxation, the United States will withhold 20 percent of assessed contributions to the regular budget of these organizations. This measure would last until certification is given by the President to Congress that neither the United Nations nor any other international organization has legal taxation authority in the United States, that no taxes or fees have been imposed on the United States, and that no taxes have been proposed by any of these organizations.

The fascination of the United Nations and other international organizations with international taxation has gone on too long. Please join me in taking a stand for the sovereignty of our Nation by supporting this bill.

Mr. Speaker, first, let me thank my good friend and colleague from Arizona for allowing me the privilege to rise today in support of legislation I introduced, the Newlands Project Headquarters and Maintenance Yard Facility Transfer Act, H.R. 540.

This legislation passed the House under suspension of the rules last year, but was not considered in the Senate prior to the adjournment of the 108th Congress. I truly appreciate the opportunity to stand before my colleagues again in support of this legislation that is so important for the people of the Second District of the State of Nevada.

The purpose of this legislation is to transfer all right, title, and interest in the Newlands Project to the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, otherwise known as TCID. This conveyance consists of approximately 35 acres and will allow TCID to make permanent improvements on this land for the continued operation of the Newlands Reclamation Project.

In 1996, the Bureau of Reclamation certified that TCID had repaid the original construction costs designated for repayment to the United States. The original construction costs included the cost of the land on which the initial headquarter facilities were located. In the late 1970s, however, TCID had outgrown the original facilities and moved to the current site, which is the area to be conveyed through this legislation.

TCID paid for the land where the original facilities were located; however, they were never compensated when they vacated these lots, despite the fact that a Federal post office now sits on the original tract of land that housed the project headquarters.

Critics will charge that this bill unfairly favors the TCID and that the land is a taxpayer asset and should be treated accordingly. Those assertions simply do not make sense.

The Bureau of Reclamation certified that the Newlands Project had been paid for and asking the TCID to pay for their land that their headquarters is currently located on would be in effect asking them to pay for it twice.

To say that H.R. 540 is a giveaway is simply incorrect and misrepresents the intent of this important legislation. This bill is a fair solution to an unfair situation.

Therefore, I urge my colleagues to join me and Senator John Ensign and Senator Harry Reid and Governor Kenny Guinn of Nevada and the local leaders of Churchill County and the city of Fallon, Nevada, in supporting this legislation.

I want to thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Renzi), my good friend and colleague, once again for allowing me to speak on this bill. I appreciate the consideration of this legislation that is so very important to my constituents in Nevada.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 540) to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to convey the Newlands Project Headquarters and Maintenance Yard Facility to the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 540.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

H.R. 540 directs the Secretary of the Interior to transfer 35 acres of the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District as soon as practicable. Before the transfer takes place, all environmental analyses will be completed in accordance with Federal, State and local laws.

As amended, this important bill also includes a number of other bipartisan water measures either favorably reported by the Committee on Resources in the waning days of the 108th Congress or those which were passed in the last Congress but were not considered by the Senate. Today's effort is an attempt to make it easier for Senate to pass these measures.

These bipartisan bills include H.R. 386, legislation offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa) and some of his lower Rio Grande, Texas colleagues, to help local irrigation districts and communities preserve their water supplies; H.R. 802, a bill authored by the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) and the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Napolitano), to authorize Federal assistance for a water recycling project in California's Inland Empire; H.R. 855, legislation introduced by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ortiz), to provide Federal dollars to the City of Brownsville's desalinization project; H.R. 863, a bill sponsored by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes), to provide Federal assistance to the City of El Paso's alternative water supply project; H.R. 1008, legislation authored by the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), to allow Federal assistance for water projects in southern California; H.R. 1197, a bill sponsored by the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), to extend irrigation contracts in Nebraska; and finally, H.R. 1327, legislation offered by the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt), to provide Federal assistance to the City of Wichita's aquifer recharge project.

Mr. Speaker, these are bipartisan bills and deserve unanimous support.

Once again, I urge my colleagues to pass H.R. 540 and the measures included therewith.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons).

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.