Floor Statements

Mr. President, I stand today to offer a bill to protect educational radio stations.

Broadcaster Linda Ellerbee has compared radio to a national campfire: a place where a variety of voices bring us stories, news, opinion, culture and entertainment. But it seems these days that those representing the biggest business interests have the best seats at that campfire.

Current regulations allow commercial broadcasters to move into the spaces of some, lower-powered educational stations.

Last year the FCC ordered an educational station at a high school in Pennsylvania to be closed because a commercial broadcaster wanted to move into that space. That high school station had been serving the students and the community in Havertown, PA for fifty years. But no more. The high school station's voice was silenced. And that same FCC order also closed a radio station operated by a school district in Princeton, NJ. Both stations lost their licenses so a commercial broadcaster could get a frequency closer to the very profitable radio market in Philadelphia.

In my State of Washington, a high school station that has served a Seattle community for 35 years is now threatened with closure. That's because a commercial broadcaster located in another State wants to relocate to a larger city to increase its profits at the expense of the students of Mercer Island High School and the community the station serves. And in this case, the school's station also serves an important tool in the lives of those working in the local music community. The station focuses on introducing new and local bands to the airways. These artists are frequently later picked up for airplay by other radio stations. Few stations across the U.S. perform this role in the music industry. No other station serves this role so well in the Seattle music community.

If the FCC allows this move, it could be worth millions to the commercial broadcasters. But what is the cost to the local community when this voice is silenced? What is the educational cost to the students at this high school? What benefits and experiences will they be losing in the future?

This is a classic example of commercial interests trumping the public service interest in preserving local educational broadcasters. These small public service stations usually don't have

anyone to stand up for them. Since the 1970's, we have seen more than a hundred of these stations disappear, to be replaced by larger, often national broadcasters, with little if any connection to the local community.

The examples I've given you here today are not the only ones. Radio stations run by universities in Pittsburgh and North Carolina are also vulnerable to similar attempts.

This is why I am introducing the Educational Radio Protection Act.

My legislation is very simple: educational stations that are able to meet certain qualifying standards, similar to the requirements for primary, Class A, stations on FM radio, will be given the same protected status that these primary stations receive.

This is an important measure to protect community broadcasters. And the bottom line is that commercial broadcasters won't be able to bump these educational stations off the radio dial.

I thank you for the time today to discuss an issue that really is a cornerstone of democracy. For only in a democracy are the voices of the many heard to bring about a functioning government. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise as a sponsor of the Bunning amendment, and I thank the Senator from Kentucky for his hard work-- both on the Energy Committee and here on the floor of the Senate.

Obviously, we are taking a giant step forward in moving major responsibility for the Energy Employee Occupational Illness Compensation Program at the Department of Labor.

There are thousands of people in Washington State who have been impacted by exposure while working at the Hanford Reservation. The issue is that in 2000, with passage of the original act, as my colleague from Iowa stated, we set up specific exposure cohorts that allowed workers in particular regions of the country to get compensation based on their exposure to beryllium. But where we are today is there are still thousands of workers who have not had their claims processed.

One of the reasons why claims haven't been processed is specific information doesn't exist or was not kept by the various employers at these reservation sites across the country to show what exposed employees endured. The issue then becomes that they have been left to fight their own battles--to fight to get compensation, to fight to prove they actually had exposure, and to fight to pay their medical bills.

With thousands of people in Washington State affected by this, I have been a big supporter of those responsibilities over at the Department of Labor. Besides that, this great ombudsman program is where individual employees can go to ask for help and support in moving their cases.

It also helps in establishing a willing payer. Some of the companies that have been involved in the cleanup process throughout the U.S. no longer exist. We have had employees who wanted to get compensation, and have proven their cases, only to find that no employer existed. This helps in establishing a willing partner and payer.

But the most specific and positive aspect of this legislation is the step forward in saying, let us do site profiles. Site profiles are specifically the responsibility of the Department of Labor to go to a place such as the Hanford nuclear reservation and say, even though some of the employers may not have kept day-to-day logs and details about every specific employee and how they were exposed--and my colleagues have articulated on the Senate floor already how so many people in their States did not have records kept and went to get records by the Department of Energy only to find they didn't exist for the individual employee. When the Department of Labor does a site profile, it will help us when we come back and say that a large class of people at the Hanford Reservation and possibly these other sites around the country now qualify for compensation. This will help expedite that.

The amendment that was modified by the Senator from Kentucky, which the Senator from Iowa worked on, is a very helpful amendment because it actually helps speed up that process of those site profiles.

I don't think it is lost on my colleagues that many of these people are dying. Many of these people, by the time this program under the DOE was going to be finished, were never going to get the help they deserved.

This amendment takes a very positive step forward in getting site profiles done, getting the information needed to prove that these people have been impacted, that they have had illness due to exposure on the job, and that they will not get some help.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I had wished to speak on the previous amendment. I thought that was part of the agreement, but I will be more specific now, since the amendment has just been adopted by voice vote; and that is to say, the amendment allows us to do a study, it allows the Department of Energy to receive information from the National Academy of Sciences in the future about the ground water conditions and environmental conditions from any kind of proposal or plan on which the Department of Energy would like to move forward.

I think my colleague from South Carolina said it best when he said our colleagues in the Senate have probably learned more in the last few weeks about nuclear waste and our responsibilities as the Federal Government than they have at any previous time.

But I guess I disagree with my colleagues. This debate is far from over. I do not agree with the underlying bill or where it is going in changing the definition of nuclear waste. No State in America should be allowed, on the Environmental Protection Act, on the Clean Water Act, on any legislation, to cut a deal behind closed doors with the Federal Government and think they are going to stick the American consumer with waste in their backyard.

While this particular amendment that we just voice-voted will allow us to say that we want this to look no further than what South Carolina is proposing, and that we want DOE to do its job in providing an environmental study and analysis of this issue, this issue is far from over for the American people.

This issue not only impacts my State, and the States of Oregon and Idaho, it affects every Western State. The reason it affects every Western State is because the Department of Energy has been trying to reclassify waste all over the West, push it into New Mexico, cut it across Arizona, and demand that waste from South Carolina be accepted in Washington State. We just had to file suit recently because high- level waste from South Carolina was illegally sent to Washington State.

So while I support my colleagues' efforts today to clarify that, more study and analysis should be made. This debate is far from over, and this body needs to understand that it is reclassifying the definition of high-level waste to a lower level, which will make all Americans less secure, and certainly the drinking water in South Carolina and in Washington State, if this is not resolved, less secure for people.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it is my privilege today to discuss the incredibly talented nominee for vacancy on the District Court for the Western District of Washington, Judge Ricardo Martinez. The people of western Washington will be well-served by this talented and fair jurist.

Given Judge Martinez's reputation for even-handedness and thoroughness, it is fitting that he was recommended by a bipartisan selection committee that I believe is a sound model for other States. Members of Washington State's legal community, the White House, and my colleague Senator Patty Murray and I worked together to review a group of applicants. Together, we all agreed that Judge Martinez is the right person for the job.

Judge Martinez has ably served the people of Washington State as a public servant for more than two decades: as prosecutor in the State's largest county for 10 years; as a Superior Court judge for 8 years; and as a United States Magistrate judge in the Western District of Washington for the past 5 years.

While serving on the King County Superior Court, Judge Martinez took the lead in helping to create an innovative ``drug court'' to address the unique challenge of recidivism among drug offenders. He helped build a consensus to try a new approach, and preside over the new court for three years.

And it worked. The``drug court,'' one of the first in the Nation, has helped reduce recidivism rates among those people who successfully complete the program and it has been emulated by many jurisdictions across the country.

Judge Martinez's commitment to his community extends beyond the courtroom. He has volunteered countless hours to help those in need and the homeless; to mentor young people as a coach in several sports; and to raise money for college scholarships for young men from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Those who have worked with Judge Martinez attest to his fundamental sense of fairness and justice. The ABA rated him as ``well- qualified''--its highest rating--on a unanimous vote. He also enjoys support from the Federal bench, and was encouraged to apply for the vacancy by all of the incumbent judges of the Western District.

I am pleased to offer Judge Ricardo Martinez my full support, and I urge my fellow Senators to approve his nomination.

Nomination of Gene Pratter

Mr. President, last week I introduced S. 2491, the Allied Health Reinvestment Act, with my colleagues, Senators Bingaman and Lieberman. As I mentioned at that time, the Allied Health Reinvestment Act will encourage individuals to seek and complete high quality allied health education and training by providing additional funding for their studies. This funding will help provide the U.S. healthcare industry with a supply of allied health professionals support the nation's health care system in this decade and beyond.

The bill has a number of supporters. I would particularly like to express my appreciation to the Association of Schools of Allied Health Professions, ASAHP, for its support of the legislation as well as its ongoing efforts to address the need for allied health professionals and allied health faculty.

ASAHP, founded in 1967, has a membership that includes 105 institutions of higher learning throughout the United States, as well as several hundred individual members. ASAHP publishes a quarterly journal and also conducts an annual survey of member institutions. This annual survey, called the ``Institutional Profile Survey,'' is used for, among other purposes, collecting student application and enrollment data. These data substantiates that there is a pressing need to address existing allied health workforce shortages, which have been further exacerbated by declines in enrollment that have occurred for 4 straight years.

Using data from the Institutional Profile Survey, as well as the General Accounting Office, U.S. Census Bureau, and other sources, ASAHP has compiled what I believe to be a compelling rationale in its support for the Allied Health Reinvestment Act that I introduced. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of this Rationale for an Allied Health Reinvestment Act from the Association of Schools of Allied Health Professions be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I am going to start this debate on the Cantwell amendment, which is the pending amendment before us, and take 15 minutes or so, if the Chair will give me recognition of that time being up. Then, depending on how we organize the debate, I would like to defer to Senator Hollings of South Carolina because this impacts him.

We are here today to talk about whether we as a body want to change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and redefine high-level waste as something other than waste that should be taken out of tanks in Savannah River, out of Washington State Hanford tanks to be stored in a permanent repository, or whether we are going to leave some of that in the tanks in the ground and have ground water continue to be contaminated.

What my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have done is put into the Defense authorization bill a change to nuclear waste policy. It is a change in 30 years of science and policy in this country that says that spent nuclear fuel from reactors is highly radioactive, high- level waste, and should be reprocessed into glassified logs, vitrified logs, and taken to a permanent storage site.

DOE is now trying to say some of that we can leave in the tanks. We don't know how much. We would like to just say it is generally up to our discretion and leave some of that in the tanks and thereby not be clear with the Congress about what level. That is a change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982 set the standard. If my colleagues want to have a debate about changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, this Senator is more than willing to have that debate, have the proper hearings, have the proper process, and have the debate.

The actual jurisdiction for that is the Energy Committee, and that is what the Parliamentarian has ruled, that the DOD authorization bill through the Senate Armed Services Committee was not the appropriate authority for changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the language that conflicts with that within the underlying Graham amendment that we just modified--the underlying bill language which was just modified by the Graham amendment.

Why are we in this predicament? Why are the American people waking up on this day finding out that a national debate is about to ensue about changing the definition of high-level waste? And that affects every State in this country. If you are going to allow one State and the DOE to negotiate and change the definition of high-level waste, why not just change the definition of transuranic waste or other kinds of waste and then, obviously, have that definition apply to States on transportation issues, on storage issues, and many other issues?

Let's review where we are and why I am so concerned, because it impacts Washington State. The Hanford Reservation in Washington State has 50 million gallons of highly radioactive nuclear waste that is already leaking into the ground water. You can see the Hanford Reservation site here, and the Columbia River. Imagine my concern about tanks leaking into the ground and the fact that leakage contaminates ground water, and that affects the Columbia River, a major tributary through the Northwest. It affects the vitality of our economy in many ways--in fishing, in tourism, in energy generation. No one in the region wants to believe that somehow radionuclides are now in the Columbia River--which, in fact, they are--and that it is going to grow to an amount where we cannot protect humans, fish, and safe drinking water. But that is where we are heading if we don't clean up this nuclear waste.

What does it really look like at Hanford today? I point out to my colleagues, because the Hanford site, which is on the map here--you can see this is the entire Hanford site. This is the picture showing the Columbia River. This red spot here is the contaminated ground water that is already leaking into the ground from tanks at Hanford. It is an 80-square-mile area. That is a plume of various chemicals that have already leaked out of the tank at Hanford. Similar leakage is happening at Savannah river. How this is going to be cleaned up given that the leakage is already starting to affect the Columbia River is a major issue for the Northwest.

So we don't take lightly the fact that DOE has now snuck into the Defense authorization bill a change in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that would reclassify this waste and say some of it is low level and we can simply grout it. By that they mean they can pour cement and sand on top of it and say that it is now fixed.

I ask the question of my colleagues, If DOE and the State of South Carolina had the authority to make a decision on this and work together, why don't they just do it? If they are not trying to change existing law, why don't they just come together and make an agreement on cleanup? They are not because they are trying to change existing law. They are trying to change the definition of what is high-level waste. They are trying to do that without having the proper hearings, without going through the proper committees of jurisdiction, without giving people enough time and enough notice on this issue.

We could continue this debate for many days and not clearly give the American people the insight to 30 years of history of nuclear waste policy. But let's look at the various definitions of nuclear waste because it is an immense framework, that 50 years of disposal law, and what is high-level waste and its definition. It is under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. What is spent nuclear fuel? It is a definition under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. That is what this underlying bill tries to change, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act definition of ``nuclear high- level waste'' and how spent nuclear fuel can be treated. That is being done without a full debate and hearings in the proper committees of jurisdiction. What DOE and South Carolina are trying to do is change that definition so they can leave some of that storage in the tanks.

My colleagues would like to say this does not set a precedent. I can tell you that is not the way it is being viewed around the country. It certainly is setting a precedent. In fact, the Minneapolis Star Tribune said this provision:

. . . would also set a troubling precedent for waste handling

in other states. . . . If shortcuts can be taken at Savannah

River, why not at Prairie Island?

In their site? Why not Idaho, in their facility? Why not as you deal with transuranic waste in New Mexico, in Arizona, or in other States? Because if you are going to give States and DOE the ability to just negotiate definitions and change them, why are we stopping here with tank waste?

Why aren't we considering other things? This is an issue that needs the full attention of this Congress. It needs the full attention not only of the Members who come from States where we have ground water leaking and contamination. Members should realize this vote is about changing a Federal policy that has been 30 years on the books without the debate and without the science. This is an inappropriate time to be changing this policy.

What about the waste we have in these States? One report I will read for some of my colleagues before I turn it over to the Senator from South Carolina who wants to make a few points about this, the ground water contamination at Savannah River is just as serious as it is in Washington State. Yes, they have fewer tanks than we do in Washington State, but it is some of the most contaminated waste that exists.

I am very concerned that we actually do something to clean up the ground water. This report entitled ``Nuclear Dumps By The Riverside: Threats to the Savannah River from Radioactive Contamination at the Savannah River Site,'' which was done in March of this

year, says that the contamination in the ground water and surface water often greatly exceeded safe drinking water limits in both radioactive and nonradioactive toxic materials. This material threatens the Savannah River and possibly other resources in the region and comes from the radioactive hazardous waste being dumped in trenches, contaminated soil, and from the high-level waste tanks that are not being retrieved.

This is a report saying it is leaking into the ground water at Savannah River, that it is causing an impact; it is contaminating that ground water; it is causing pollution in the Savannah River. I find that very much a concern.

In Washington State, along the Columbia River, this stretch of the Columbia River has one of the largest bedding grounds for salmon in our State. Now those fish are being contaminated in a similar way if we do not come up with an effective cleanup plan.

What is the tritium and drinking water standard at Savannah River? Water that is tritium-tainted is far more dangerous to children and developing fetuses than to adults. Recent research indicates the current safe drinking water standards for tritium are not adequate to protect developing fetuses to the level comparable for that of nonpregnant adults.

What are we saying to people at Savannah River? Do not go fishing in the Savannah River? Do not provide some sort of safety for consumers who are depending on that?

The report goes on and talks about subsistence fishing in the Savannah River. We have many tribes in the Northwest that fish out of the Columbia River, too. We are not going to protect them because the level of contamination that is already in the water now is starting to show very dangerous signs for both ground water standards and subsistence fishing?

We need to do our job and clean this up. For 30 years the policy has been to take the waste out of the tanks, move it, glassify it, and put it in a permanent storage. We are changing that with very little debate in the Senate today.

Obviously, I urge my colleagues to support the Cantwell amendment which would strike this reclassification and say to DOE: Here is the cleanup money for the States of Washington, Idaho, and for Georgia, and the money should be spent on this cleanup effort.

It continues the process of cleaning up the tanks that have been classified as high-level waste, and it makes the cleanup process continue to move forward.

We took the language from Governor Kempthorne. Governor Kempthorne said to many people, including my colleagues from Idaho, that he had concern with the current underlying bill. In fact, Governor Kempthorne, like our Governor in Washington, has had to deal with this in a major way. This is what he said about the legislation:

[I]t would be a huge step backward, reinforcing public

fears about our nation walking away from nuclear cleanup

obligations.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed an article from the Idaho Statesman in which former Governors Cecil Andrus and Phil Batt said the same thing, that to adopt this legislation could jeopardize the full implementation and agreement.

Obviously, we want to move forward with the language that Kempthorne's office and others in our State of Washington and others say to DOE, to move ahead on your cleanup plans under the current law, which says that hazardous nuclear fuel, spent nuclear fuel, needs to be taken out of tanks, glassified, and put into a permanent repository. That is what we have been working toward.

This is not a debate we should be having in one afternoon on the Senate floor. It is far more complex than that. This Senator certainly did not want to have this complex debate on the Senate floor. This Senator wanted this policy to go through the normal channels for discussion.

This Senator did not fill the amendment tree last week with a process in which this Senator had to object just to get a vote. So now we are having a debate which gets a time limit on my amendment. But this Senator was not the person who set this process in motion. I will stand here and debate the policy that is before the Senate.

I yield.

Does the Senator have a question? I don't know that I heard the question, but let me say the underlying Graham language was never debated by the Energy Committee. The underlying Graham language was never seen prior to the Energy Committee--before this bill came out of the SASC Committee. In fact, the ranking member of the Energy Committee sent a

letter saying that this SASC Committee did not have jurisdiction over this issue.

So the Graham language in this bill has not been before the Energy Committee regarding its exact language and the impact of that language.

Now, broad concepts about whether DOE has the right to reclassify waste, yes, have been a big subject of debate. In fact, that is why I believe the courts basically said the Department of Energy does not have jurisdiction over this issue and that they have to change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act if they want to have this authority.

I yield to the Senator from South Carolina.

Mr. President, I will yield to the Senator from New Mexico, the ranking member of the Energy Committee, to give a statement, but before that I want to enter into the record a couple of documents and make a statement.

First, I have great respect for the junior Senator from South Carolina and his work on so many issues. He did a great service for many men and women in this country by leading a battle in getting health care coverage for the National Guard. There is a large percentage in our State serving in the National Guard in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and I know my State thanks him on this.

On this issue, we certainly disagree. I think it is a change in strategy, or at least a deal that has been cut behind closed doors, because I do view it as a change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. That is the way my State views it. That is the way 20 newspapers across the country view it. That is the legal opinion of staff, that it is a change to the definition of what is high-level waste.

I point out that South Carolina, up until the Senator's amendment, has been pretty consistent. I have an August 12, 2003, letter sent to the Secretary of Energy from the State of South Carolina, signed by the State of South Carolina saying DOE already has the tools it needs to address this issue; that it does not need to use a sledge hammer to get the job done, and goes ahead and says they should use the current definition of the law.

Also in March 2004, a couple of months ago, South Carolina said DOE cannot ignore Congress's intent by simply calling high-level waste by a different name. And later, South Carolina goes on to say this poses a threat to the citizens' health and natural resources.

So I find it very interesting that the State of South Carolina filed those documents in court, sent letters to the Secretary of Energy making those statements, and now all of a sudden South Carolina has changed its position. I don't know if they were saying they didn't believe in their case and that is why they wanted to spend the State's legal time and money filing it. I don't know if they have their cabinet officials signing letters to the Secretary of Energy that they don't believe. But I think actually the issue is the State of South Carolina has been pretty consistent. In fact, the House Members, when this issue was before the House of Representatives, said let's not put any language in changing the definition of what is high-level waste. If there needs to be a study, we are willing to study it. That is what the members of the South Carolina delegation voted on. So I think they have been pretty consistent.

While my colleague, the junior Member from South Carolina, is trying to move ahead on nuclear waste cleanup, I think we have a disagreement among ourselves and with what South Carolina's position has been consistently for several years now, and that is that DOE has the authority. What DOE wants to do is leave waste behind. They don't have the authority to do that, nor does science think that is a prudent way to deal with this issue.

I ask unanimous consent to have that material printed in the Record, Mr. President.

I yield 20 minutes to the Senator from New Mexico who, as the ranking member from the Energy Committee, knows of our efforts to try to get the Senate Armed Services Committee not to deal with this issue since they didn't have jurisdiction over it. He sent a letter to the committee urging them on that and has had a great deal of history on this issue.

I yield the floor to the Senator from New Mexico.

How much time remains?

Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from New York.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New York for coming to the floor and speaking on this issue, and for her leadership in the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Before my colleague from Washington and I got a whiff of this plan, because the Senate Armed Services Committee met behind closed doors on this issue and the language was considered behind closed doors--I appreciate the fact that the Senator from New York was there fighting, at the very beginning, this language being put into the DOD bill. I appreciate her comments about the fact that basically we are taking a bill that is about defense authorization and now changing waste policy, and weighing down the process.

Why would we want to weigh down the process of moving something that is about supporting our troops and supporting our efforts with a change in nuclear waste policy? The House dealt with this responsibly. They said: If you want to look at this policy, let's study it and get information. So that is what the House has done.

Mr. President, I yield the Senator from Washington 15 minutes.

I yield the Senator from Michigan 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague's characterization of this issue. I think we have had somewhat of a debate this morning. I think probably for most people, including my colleagues, what we have done is shown that this is a very complex issue, a very complicated issue, and that it needs more discussion than a few hours on the Senate floor, because what is at stake here is the lives of individuals who are living in these communities, whose ground water may be contaminated, whose safe drinking water in the future may be contaminated at levels that are not sustainable in these areas.

Let's recap for a second where we have been in this debate, because I will

have printed in the Record, for my colleagues to understand, the 1989 agreement between Washington State and DOE, and the 1995 agreement between the State of Idaho and DOE on cleanup.

Let me point out, we have agreements. We have agreements with the Department of Energy on cleanup. They are agreements that basically say: DOE, keep making progress on cleanup and please continue to follow the Federal statute. The issue at hand is that somehow my colleague from South Carolina has been persuaded by the Department of Energy--an argument the State of Washington refused to buy, I might add, an argument the State of Idaho refused to buy--that somehow cleanup means we have to reclassify waste.

So, yes, States in this country have continued to push DOE on agreement. We had agreements on the books. It is unfortunate that DOE has not been able to be trusted to get cleanup done in a timely fashion. That is why States have continued to push them.

Agreements are in place. And our State continues, as Idaho and South Carolina admit in a court filing that they do not trust DOE and that DOE should move forward and it doesn't need the sledge hammer of this legislation. That is South Carolina's own testimony in court and its own testimony to the Department of Energy in a letter.

Why are we having this discussion then? We are having this discussion because, even though agreements are already in place and DOE is failing to live up to cleanup, DOE would like to now change the rules of the game and change the definition of high-level waste.

If you think about it, the point of the Senator from South Carolina is that his State should have the right to agree with DOE to clean things up, and that he is not changing current law.

If that were the case, why are we here arguing today? The Senator from South Carolina and DOE should just go and proceed. The reason they do not is because the Senator from South Carolina knows all too well that his language is changing current law and that he needs that change if DOE wants to leave high-level waste in the ground.

The point is for all Americans to understand that nuclear waste in States such as Washington, Idaho, and South Carolina only have the authority to argue these issues about cleanup within the framework of a Federal statute. That Federal statute is the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

What the Senator from South Carolina is doing in the underlying bill is threatening the rights of States, including his own State, to protect itself from DOE as DOE reclassifies waste. It leaves our States at jeopardy. It leaves all States where there are nuclear facilities in jeopardy because of DOE's insistence that the nuclear waste policy definition of spent nuclear fuel does not have to meet the standard of high-level waste. It leaves all of these States with a debate with DOE that DOE can say this waste is no longer high level. We can transport it. We can do whatever we want with it. We can fill tanks with grout. It is a very dangerous precedent.

The Senator is getting rid of the Federal framework. No State has the ability to negotiate on its own a Federal cleanup standard. Imagine if the State of Michigan discussed with EPA this is what the clean air standard should be for the State of Michigan? What if Florida and the EPA decided what safe drinking water standards are for the State of Florida? We have never operated that way.

The Senator from South Carolina refuses to address that his State can only deal with leaving tank waste in the ground, which he is proposing we do, by changing the Federal standard. The Department of Defense authorization bill changes the definition of high-level waste. It is changing the Federal standard. It is then leaving those States subject to DOE's whim on how much ground waste and water pollution will be there in those tanks at Hanford, at Savannah River, and in Idaho.

The Senator talks about contaminated ground water. His ground water in Savannah River is already contaminated. The ground water in Washington State at Hanford is already contaminated. There are other parts of the country with high-level contaminated waste.

The question is, What are we going to do to hold DOE's feet to the fire to make sure they get this waste cleaned up? This body, for the last 3 years, has seen various changes at this administration level try to undermine current environmental standards and environmental law. The current environmental law of the day regarding nuclear waste is the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The Senator's language in the underlying bill threatens that language.

Washington State agreements, which have been fighting DOE to live up to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, will no longer be able to argue that effectively, nor will Idaho, unless we pass my amendment.

My amendment specifically says we are not changing the definition of high-level waste but the Department of Energy needs to have dollars appropriated, which this bill authorizes, for $350 million of cleanup, and the DOE must spend that money on cleanup. We actually crafted that language with Senator Levin with the help and support of Governor Kempthorne of Idaho. We put the Kempthorne language in our amendment. Why did we do that? Because we wanted to be clear with the Kempthorne language that we were not going to be held hostage; Idaho, Washington, and even Savannah River were not going to be blackmailed by DOE to saying, they only get the cleanup dollars if, in fact, they agree to a lesser standard which allows us to leave more pollution in the ground water in your State. We refused to agree to this policy and be held hostage by DOE.

The Senators from Idaho do not need any other language. They want their State protected on this issue. They want their dollars for cleanup protected. The Cantwell amendment protects the State of Idaho. I am sure that is what the response will be from the State of Idaho and the State of Washington and others as they look at this policy. It corrects onerous activities that happened when the Defense authorization bill moved through the Senate Armed Services Committee and marked up policy changes to environmental policy of which that committee does not have oversight.

My colleagues can say we have had lots of debate about cleanup and lots of budget discussions. I don't think anyone can seriously stand in the Senate and say the change in definition of hazardous nuclear waste is the jurisdiction of the Senate Armed Services Committee. It is not. The Parliamentarian has already ruled on that. That is the jurisdiction of the Energy Committee.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are ignoring the hard facts. This is not about individual States having agreement; it is about changing the Federal standard for nuclear waste cleanup.

This administration and DOE ought to be embarrassed. They are trying this sneaky process behind closed doors and putting language in that now we all have to come to the Senate and fight to take out.

What Member wants to vote against the Defense authorization bill that has this language in it? What does this language have to do with troops in Afghanistan or troops in Iraq? What does it have to do with giving men and women the support they deserve to fight for our country? It is creating a controversy around change to a Federal policy that has not been debated.

There is no Lindsey Graham bill or bill by any of my other colleagues that has the Graham language in it that was brought before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and debated. My colleagues are wrong on this.

Let's see what the rest of America is saying about this because I guarantee this debate will not end today. It is very important the third parties that have looked at this issue have validated exactly what my colleagues on this side of the aisle are saying about this issue.

In fact, the Savannah Morning News says:

It's good for the government to save billions of dollars

and to clean up nuclear waste. But a money-saving plan that

does a poor job of tidying up is no bargain.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune said:

Quicker and cheaper can be valid considerations . . . but

only after the highest level of safety has been guaranteed.

And those guarantees must satisfy national standards, not the

terms of a side deal.

That is exactly what this is, a side deal between a State and an agency

that has neglected its cleanup responsibilities for years. The court said they needed to move forward but not by changing the definition of high-level waste that they did not have, but move forward on the plans they have in place. This is a side deal.

The Boston Globe said:

If the Senate isn't careful, it could vote this week to

allow the Department of Energy to cover some of the nation's

most hazardous nuclear waste with grout instead of treating

it properly. . . . The Senate should strip the defense

spending bill of this toxic measure.

The Oregonian, from another part of the country that is greatly impacted by this issue because of the Columbia River and the huge impact that river has, already with that plutonium leaked into the river, said:

It's remotely possible that [this] policy is worth

debating, but this sneaky approach suggests the Department of

Energy isn't interested in a public discussion of the issue.

What did the Seattle Times say? In our State, we have been battling DOE for years because they always want to take a shortcut. They always want to take a shortcut and say we can do it quicker. What are the Washington agreements about? The Washington agreements are about forcing DOE to live up to Federal cleanup standards. That is what the agreements are. In fact, they always try to get out of it. The Seattle Times wrote:

The Senate should slap down a sneaky ploy . . . that would

give the Department of Energy the right to single-handedly

change the rules about how it handles highly radioactive

waste.

The Washington Post took a look at this situation and said:

. . . a situation in which states compete to reach private

agreements with the Energy Department and then rush to put

them into legislation is untenable.

What did the Atlanta Journal Constitution say? It is a State that is affected by the Savannah River which flows into their State. The Savannah River already has pollution problems with radionuclides affecting fish and affecting safe drinking water conditions. It said:

. . . words do matter, and some semantic contortions can be

dangerous. Recent efforts by the U.S. Department of Energy to

circumvent the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act by slipping

through a linguistic wormhole are an outrageous case in

point.

What about the Omaha-World Herald? They know a little bit about this issue. They have debated the nuclear waste issue. They said:

We hope Congress will listen to common-sense views . . .

and yank this terrible idea back out of the bill. It's not

merely wrongheaded; it would result in a hazard to the public

well-being.

And there are newspapers in my State weighing in on this issue. The Tri-City Herald, which is in the heart of this cleanup effort at Hanford, the largest tank waste cleanup in the country, where we already have 1 million gallons of tank waste leaking in a plume that is an 80-square-mile area that is going to the Columbia River, said:

Senators considering [this issue] should ask themselves

this: If reclassification really is such a great and worthy

idea, why isn't the Energy Department making the argument in

the light of day?

If they really thought reclassifying waste was such a great idea, why don't they put a bill before this legislative body saying so, driving it through the normal channels and the normal process of legislation? They know they do not have this authority. They tried by their own executive administrative order to do it, and the courts told them they did not have the ability to do it. But instead of coming through the proper channels with a bill and legislation, they have chosen, instead, to sneak language into the Defense authorization bill--probably one of the most unpatriotic things I can think to do.

These men and women gave a serious amount of their lives to fighting in World War II and the cold war by producing plutonium and giving us a tool to win in those areas. They did that in record time. Now they expect this country, just like businesses all across America, to clean up their waste. We expect the Federal Government to clean up their waste. We do not expect a short-end process where they say you can simply grout over nuclear radioactive waste and put sand and gravel on top of it and somehow stabilize the situation.

So the Tri-City Herald said Senators should ask themselves this: If reclassification is such a great idea, why don't they make the argument in the light of day?

What did the Idaho Statesman say? The Idaho Statesman said:

The Energy Department's shameful record on this issue--

Why would a paper like the Idaho Statesman say it is a ``shameful record''? Because it is true. DOE fails to live up, time and time again, to the process of moving forward, and so States have had to enter into agreements that comply with Federal law--not circumvent Federal law, but comply with Federal law--and hold DOE's feet to the fire and say: DOE, you must meet the Federal standard and move forward. So the Idaho Statesman said:

The Energy Department's shameful record on this issue is

even more troubling. Remember recent history . . . Suggesting

there's no precedent--and no potential effect on Idaho--is

politically naive.

That is from the Idaho Statesman.

What did the Bangor Daily News say? Well, the Bangor Daily News said:

The long-term implications of such an important change in

waste-storage policy are too serious to give the issue a free

ride in a spending bill.

So we have heard from over 20 newspapers across America. My colleague from New York submitted editorials from both the New York Times and the Buffalo News. I talked about the Minneapolis Star earlier and their comments on this issue.

Show me a newspaper in America that is saying this is a good policy. In the limited amount of time we have had to get this debate in front of the public, the public has basically, in these editorials and letters to the editors, raised serious questions about this policy, serious questions about why the Senate would be moving forward on this issue.

As my colleague, the senior Senator from Washington, mentioned earlier, the House of Representatives, when posed with this question, figured it out and said: Listen, if this is such a good idea, let's have a study. Let's have a study and analysis of this issue and see exactly what people can come up with as far as science. Well, that is what is in the House version of this legislation--a study--because my colleagues over there understood that this was a change to Federal policy.

So what about the underlying effects of this legislation if the Cantwell amendment is not adopted? The Cantwell amendment says two things: We are not changing the definition of what is high-level waste and the definition of spent nuclear fuel. We are leaving that the same. But we are giving the authorization and requiring that DOE spend $350 million on cleanup in Washington, in Savannah River, and in Idaho. So we are pushing them ahead. So there is no holdup on cleanup, no issue. DOE, get back to your job of taking the waste out of the tanks and putting it into a glassification and storage process. Why are we spending billions of dollars on a glassification process--that is, the process of taking this spent fuel and turning it into glass logs and moving it into storage--if we are going to leave so much of it in the ground in these tanks? Why would we be spending so much money on it?

As my colleagues are trying to paint a picture that somehow our language does not take care of the blackmail clause, we are simply not--in Washington or in Idaho--going to be blackmailed by DOE into sneaking in language or having our funds held up. As my colleague from Washington said, we have successfully, as a caucus, fought these efforts in the past and have not been peeled off by DOE, that likes to play a switch-and-run game, just because OMB or somebody says we don't have the money in the budget to do the cleanup.

Well, nuclear waste cleanup costs money. The plume in our State already has 1 million gallons of ground water leakage; I will point out to my colleagues, these tanks started leaking years ago. This is not a recent phenomenon. So the fact that these tanks were built, and that DOE knew they were leaking. We all became aware of this; I know this body changes, you have turnover in membership, but my colleagues knew these tanks were leaking. The thing we should have done is continued to push DOE, just as Washington has, just as Idaho has, and just as Savannah River has in legal documents.

I have, again, great respect for the junior Senator of South Carolina, but

he is wrong as it relates to his State's history. His State has said, on numerous occasions, that DOE is wrong on this issue. Now, I get that they have an advocate in the Senate today to make a different point for them, but why do they spend the taxpayers' money in South Carolina arguing in a Federal court case that DOE was wrong to try to change this policy and send letters to Spencer Abraham, the Secretary of Energy, saying he was dead wrong on this policy? Why did they spend the money of the taxpayers in South Carolina fighting this battle, along with Washington and along with Idaho, if they did not believe in it?

I know. Because the State of South Carolina does believe that Federal cleanup policy should be preserved, that the States can only be protected by having a Federal statute, that negotiating cleanup policy standards is not the prerogative of individual States. It is something that is designated under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. If that law is to be changed, then it ought to be done in the broad daylight of this body and this organization.

So what are we left with today? I think some people at home, who may have been watching this debate, are asking themselves this question. I hope the Cantwell amendment is adopted because it will remove this debate from this bill that we need to move forward with to protect our troops, to continue to give them the resources they need, and move the nuclear waste debate off of something that is so important for us to get done.

But if the Cantwell amendment is not adopted, what we will leave the people with is legislation that basically says the Department of Energy can grout these tanks and can leave this waste in the ground. I do not want safe drinking water affected. I do not want ground water contamination. I want the Senate to do its job and uphold the Federal standard.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a letter from the National Congress of American Indians. And I commend to my colleagues the 1995 Idaho settlement agreement and the Washington Tri-Party Agreement.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about something I have tried to address many times before in this body, and that is the issue of market manipulation and energy contracts specifically by the Enron company that have gouged my constituents for millions of dollars.

We have seen in the last couple of days as my own home public utilities district, Snohomish County PUD, was successful at getting audiotapes from the Enron company that showed exactly what people thought was happening: That people were talking about market manipulation, that people were talking about schemes, that people were making jokes about $250 megawatt costs and prices that were gouging my constituents on energy prices. Now we know this company has already been cited by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as having manipulated the markets; now we are hearing in their own voices, in their own words, among their own employees, that this manipulation was going on.

The question is, what are we going to do about the market manipulation that has happened and for which my consumers have been gouged? My own home, my own personal utility has had a 50-percent rate increase since the energy crisis took place. That means my constituents have been paying higher energy costs on Enron-manipulated contracts and other contracts during this time period.

One would think that once market manipulation had been admitted, once market manipulation had been documented that we would do something about the market manipulation. In fact, yesterday, the President said we must pass the Energy bill and we must protect consumers. I have a message for the President: This Energy bill does not protect consumers. In fact, it guarantees that the market manipulation which was done by Enron will continue because it basically says that manipulated contracts can be the standard for today. I think that is absolutely wrong. My constituents, in reports and analyses by California, Washington, and Oregon economists, have probably lost 100,000 jobs directly and indirectly from the energy crisis. We have lost a big percentage of our GDP. And we have had a huge increase in rates throughout the State.

So what does that mean? That means my constituents are still paying on those Enron contracts, and when our utilities said they were not going to pay, what happened? Enron turned around and sued utilities in my State. Enron is suing my consumers saying: You still have to pay on manipulated contracts.

Well, here is my check to Enron. Here is my $370.00 check that will still have to go to pay for that Enron contract in which they have admitted market manipulation.

I have already personally paid them hundreds of dollars on manipulated contracts. So have my constituents. The question is whether this body and this administration are going to do anything about market manipulation, whether they are going to stand up and say that the Enrons of the world have taken the consumer to the cleaners and are going to let my constituents out of these manipulated contracts.

So while the President would like to have an energy bill, I would like to have an energy bill that protects consumers. I would like to have an energy bill that passes both the House and the Senate where Members of this body and the other body stand up and say market manipulation is wrong and we do not condone any contract as just and reasonable or any contract as in the public interest if, in fact, it has manipulated, schemed, and put people out of their homes at a huge cost to many of the consumers in my State.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the well-being of the U.S. population depends to a considerable extent on having access to high quality health care which, in turn, requires the presence of an adequate supply of health care professionals. The Congress and the President recognized this need when we passed, and President Bush signed, the Nurse Reinvestment Act in the 107th Congress. Just as with nurses, we must also insure an adequate supply of well-prepared allied health professionals. That is why, today, I am introducing the Allied Health Reinvestment Act with my good colleagues, Senator Bingaman of New Mexico and Senator Lieberman of Connecticut.

The allied health professions are many. Those recognized in the act include professionals in the areas of: dental hygiene, dietetics/ nutrition, emergency medical services, health information management, clinical laboratory sciences/medical technology, cytotechnology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, radiologic technology, nuclear medical technology, rehabilitation counseling, respiratory therapy, and speech-language pathology/audiology. This is not an exhaustive list, as the act will leave to the discretion of the Secretary of HHS additional professions deemed eligible.

Today, many allied health professions are characterized by existing workforce shortages, declining enrollments in academic institutions, or a

combination of both factors. The American Hospital Association (AHA) reports vacancy rates of 18 percent among radiology technicians, ten percent among laboratory technologists, 15.3 percent among imaging technicians, and 12.7 percent among pharmacy technicians. In addition, the AHA indicates that hospitals are having increasing difficulties recruiting these same professionals over the preceding two-year period.

In my own State of Washington, the Washington State Hospital Association reports vacancy rates of 14.3 percent among ultrasound technologists, 11.3 percent among radiology technicians, and 10.9 percent among nuclear medicine technologists. These vacancy rates have a real effect on the hospitals in my State. When I meet with hospital officials back home, they always tell me how the lack of technicians affects patient care.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projected that in the period 1998- 2008, the United States would need a total of 93,000 new professionals in clinical laboratory science by creating 53,000 new positions and filling the 40,000 existing vacancies. That averages 9,000 openings per year for technicians, and yet academic institutions are producing only 4,990 graduates annually. If these numbers stay constant, we will be short by 43,100 needed technicians in 2008.

According to the American Hospital Association, declining enrollment in health education programs contributes to the critical shortages of health care professionals. Similarly, data from a November 2002 study of 90 institutions by the Association of Schools of Allied Health Professionals (ASAHP) shows a three-year period of decline in enrollment in cardiovascular perfusion technology, cytotechnology, dietetics, emergency medical sciences, health administration, health information management, medical technology, occupational therapy, rehabilitation counseling, respiratory therapy, and respiratory therapy technician programs. As an indication of a worsening situation, data from the 2002-2003 academic year, alone, show that dental hygiene, physician assistant, and speech-language pathology and audiology should be added to this list.

While having an adequate number of health professionals in our country is key to ensuring access to health care for all of us, certainly one of the key populations for whom a healthy supply of health professionals is vitally important for is our senior population.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that rapid growth of the population age 65 and over will begin in 2011 when the first of the baby boom generation reaches age 65 and will continue for many years. From 1900 to 2000, the proportion of persons 65 and over tripled, going from 4.1 percent to 12.4 percent.

The baby-boom generation's movement into middle age, a period when the incidence of heart attack and stroke increases, will produce a higher demand for therapeutic services. Medical advances now enable more patients with critical problems to survive, but in order to do so and maintain a high quality of life, these patients may need extensive therapy.

Along with the aging of the population came an increase in the number of Americans living with one, and often more than one, chronic condition. Today, it is estimated that 125 million Americans live with a chronic condition, and by 2020 as the population ages, that number will increase to an estimated 157 million, with 81 million of them having two or more chronic conditions. Twenty-five percent of individuals with chronic conditions have some type of activity limitations. Two-thirds of Medicare spending is for beneficiaries with five or more chronic conditions.

Many individuals with chronic conditions rely on family caregivers. Approximately nine million Americans provide such services, and on the average, they spend 24 hours a week doing so. Caregivers aged 65-74 provide an average of 30.7 hours of care per week and individuals aged 75 and older provide an average of 34.5 hours per week.

Women are more likely than men to have chronic conditions, in part because they have longer life expectancies. These same women are caregivers to other chronically ill persons. In addition, 65 percent of caregivers are female, and of all caregivers, nearly 40 percent are 55 years of age and older.

Physicians report that their training does not adequately prepare them to care for this type of patient by providing education and offering effective nutritional guidance. Those aspects of care can be provided by allied health professionals, but many of them need better preparation to treat and coordinate care for patients with chronic conditions. While much emphasis is placed on curative forms of care, additional efforts must be devoted to slowing the progression of disease and its effects.

One example of the effectiveness of allied health interventions may be illustrated by a study funded by the National Institute on Aging, the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research, and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (since renamed the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality). The investigation showed that significant benefits resulted from a nine-month occupational therapy intervention intended to reduce health-related declines among urban, multiethnic, independent-living older adults. The majority of study participants, 73 percent, lived alone and 26 percent reported at least one disability. Important health-related benefits attributable to the intervention continued over a six-month interval in the absence of further treatment.

The bill I and my colleagues introduce today, like the Nurse Reinvestment Act in the 107th Congress, is intended to provide incentives for individuals to seek and complete high quality allied health education and training. Furthermore, the bill will provide additional funding to ensure that such education and training can be provided to allied health students so that the U.S. healthcare industry will have a supply of allied health professionals needed to support the nation's health care system in this decade and beyond.

The bill offers allied health education, practice, and retention grants. Education grants will be used to expand the enrollment in allied health education programs, especially by underrepresented racial and ethnic minority students, and provide educational opportunities through new technologies and methods, including distance-learning. Practice grants are intended to establish or expand allied health practice arrangements in non-institutional settings to demonstrate methods that will improve access to primary health care in rural areas and other medically underserved communities. Retention grants are intended to promote career advancement for allied health personnel.

Grants will also be made available to health care facilities to enable them to carry out demonstrations of models and best practices in allied health for the purpose of developing innovative strategies or approaches for retention of allied health professionals. These grants will be awarded to a variety of geographic regions, and to a range of different types and sizes of facilities, including facilities located in rural, urban, and suburban areas.

Furthermore, this bill will give the Secretary of HHS, acting through the Administrator of HRSA, the authority to enter into an agreement with any institution that offers an eligible allied health education program to establish and operate a faculty loan fund to increase the number of qualified allied health faculty. Loans may be granted to faculty who are pursuing a full-time course of study or, at the discretion of the Secretary, a part-time course of study in an advanced degree program.

I am especially proud of the provisions of this legislation regarding the National Health Service Corps program, the brain child of Senator Warren Magnuson of Washington. The NHSC program, of course, encourages students in the health professions such as doctors and dentists to serve in underserved areas throughout our Nation in return for loan repayment assistance. And, like the NHSC program, this Allied Health Reinvestment Act will establish a scholarship program that provides scholarships to individuals seeking allied health education in exchange for service by those individuals in rural and other medically underserved areas with allied health personnel shortages.

There are a number of organizations supporting this bill, and I thank them for that support. Among them, the list includes, but is not limited to:

Washington State Hospital Association

Health Work Force Institute (Seattle, WA)

American Association for Respiratory Care

American Association of Community Colleges

American Clinical Laboratory Association

American Dental Hygienists' Association

American Dietetic Association

American Health Information Management Association

American Physical Therapy Association

American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science

American Society for Clinical Pathology

American Society of Radiologic Technologists

Association of Academic Health Centers

College of Health Deans

Midwest Regional Deans Group

Myositis Association

National Association of EMS Educators

National Cancer Registrars Association

National Network of Health Career Programs in Two-Year

Colleges

Northeast Regional Deans Group

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, the well-being of the U.S. population depends to a considerable extent on having access to high quality health care which, in turn, requires the presence of an adequate supply of health care professionals. The Congress and the President recognized this need when we passed, and President Bush signed, the Nurse Reinvestment Act in the 107th Congress. Just as with nurses, we must also insure an adequate supply of well-prepared allied health professionals. That is why, today, I am introducing the Allied Health Reinvestment Act with my good colleagues, Senator Bingaman of New Mexico and Senator Lieberman of Connecticut.

The allied health professions are many. Those recognized in the act include professionals in the areas of: dental hygiene, dietetics/ nutrition, emergency medical services, health information management, clinical laboratory sciences/medical technology, cytotechnology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, radiologic technology, nuclear medical technology, rehabilitation counseling, respiratory therapy, and speech-language pathology/audiology. This is not an exhaustive list, as the act will leave to the discretion of the Secretary of HHS additional professions deemed eligible.

Today, many allied health professions are characterized by existing workforce shortages, declining enrollments in academic institutions, or a

combination of both factors. The American Hospital Association (AHA) reports vacancy rates of 18 percent among radiology technicians, ten percent among laboratory technologists, 15.3 percent among imaging technicians, and 12.7 percent among pharmacy technicians. In addition, the AHA indicates that hospitals are having increasing difficulties recruiting these same professionals over the preceding two-year period.

In my own State of Washington, the Washington State Hospital Association reports vacancy rates of 14.3 percent among ultrasound technologists, 11.3 percent among radiology technicians, and 10.9 percent among nuclear medicine technologists. These vacancy rates have a real effect on the hospitals in my State. When I meet with hospital officials back home, they always tell me how the lack of technicians affects patient care.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projected that in the period 1998- 2008, the United States would need a total of 93,000 new professionals in clinical laboratory science by creating 53,000 new positions and filling the 40,000 existing vacancies. That averages 9,000 openings per year for technicians, and yet academic institutions are producing only 4,990 graduates annually. If these numbers stay constant, we will be short by 43,100 needed technicians in 2008.

According to the American Hospital Association, declining enrollment in health education programs contributes to the critical shortages of health care professionals. Similarly, data from a November 2002 study of 90 institutions by the Association of Schools of Allied Health Professionals (ASAHP) shows a three-year period of decline in enrollment in cardiovascular perfusion technology, cytotechnology, dietetics, emergency medical sciences, health administration, health information management, medical technology, occupational therapy, rehabilitation counseling, respiratory therapy, and respiratory therapy technician programs. As an indication of a worsening situation, data from the 2002-2003 academic year, alone, show that dental hygiene, physician assistant, and speech-language pathology and audiology should be added to this list.

While having an adequate number of health professionals in our country is key to ensuring access to health care for all of us, certainly one of the key populations for whom a healthy supply of health professionals is vitally important for is our senior population.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that rapid growth of the population age 65 and over will begin in 2011 when the first of the baby boom generation reaches age 65 and will continue for many years. From 1900 to 2000, the proportion of persons 65 and over tripled, going from 4.1 percent to 12.4 percent.

The baby-boom generation's movement into middle age, a period when the incidence of heart attack and stroke increases, will produce a higher demand for therapeutic services. Medical advances now enable more patients with critical problems to survive, but in order to do so and maintain a high quality of life, these patients may need extensive therapy.

Along with the aging of the population came an increase in the number of Americans living with one, and often more than one, chronic condition. Today, it is estimated that 125 million Americans live with a chronic condition, and by 2020 as the population ages, that number will increase to an estimated 157 million, with 81 million of them having two or more chronic conditions. Twenty-five percent of individuals with chronic conditions have some type of activity limitations. Two-thirds of Medicare spending is for beneficiaries with five or more chronic conditions.

Many individuals with chronic conditions rely on family caregivers. Approximately nine million Americans provide such services, and on the average, they spend 24 hours a week doing so. Caregivers aged 65-74 provide an average of 30.7 hours of care per week and individuals aged 75 and older provide an average of 34.5 hours per week.

Women are more likely than men to have chronic conditions, in part because they have longer life expectancies. These same women are caregivers to other chronically ill persons. In addition, 65 percent of caregivers are female, and of all caregivers, nearly 40 percent are 55 years of age and older.

Physicians report that their training does not adequately prepare them to care for this type of patient by providing education and offering effective nutritional guidance. Those aspects of care can be provided by allied health professionals, but many of them need better preparation to treat and coordinate care for patients with chronic conditions. While much emphasis is placed on curative forms of care, additional efforts must be devoted to slowing the progression of disease and its effects.

One example of the effectiveness of allied health interventions may be illustrated by a study funded by the National Institute on Aging, the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research, and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (since renamed the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality). The investigation showed that significant benefits resulted from a nine-month occupational therapy intervention intended to reduce health-related declines among urban, multiethnic, independent-living older adults. The majority of study participants, 73 percent, lived alone and 26 percent reported at least one disability. Important health-related benefits attributable to the intervention continued over a six-month interval in the absence of further treatment.

The bill I and my colleagues introduce today, like the Nurse Reinvestment Act in the 107th Congress, is intended to provide incentives for individuals to seek and complete high quality allied health education and training. Furthermore, the bill will provide additional funding to ensure that such education and training can be provided to allied health students so that the U.S. healthcare industry will have a supply of allied health professionals needed to support the nation's health care system in this decade and beyond.

The bill offers allied health education, practice, and retention grants. Education grants will be used to expand the enrollment in allied health education programs, especially by underrepresented racial and ethnic minority students, and provide educational opportunities through new technologies and methods, including distance-learning. Practice grants are intended to establish or expand allied health practice arrangements in non-institutional settings to demonstrate methods that will improve access to primary health care in rural areas and other medically underserved communities. Retention grants are intended to promote career advancement for allied health personnel.

Grants will also be made available to health care facilities to enable them to carry out demonstrations of models and best practices in allied health for the purpose of developing innovative strategies or approaches for retention of allied health professionals. These grants will be awarded to a variety of geographic regions, and to a range of different types and sizes of facilities, including facilities located in rural, urban, and suburban areas.

Furthermore, this bill will give the Secretary of HHS, acting through the Administrator of HRSA, the authority to enter into an agreement with any institution that offers an eligible allied health education program to establish and operate a faculty loan fund to increase the number of qualified allied health faculty. Loans may be granted to faculty who are pursuing a full-time course of study or, at the discretion of the Secretary, a part-time course of study in an advanced degree program.

I am especially proud of the provisions of this legislation regarding the National Health Service Corps program, the brain child of Senator Warren Magnuson of Washington. The NHSC program, of course, encourages students in the health professions such as doctors and dentists to serve in underserved areas throughout our Nation in return for loan repayment assistance. And, like the NHSC program, this Allied Health Reinvestment Act will establish a scholarship program that provides scholarships to individuals seeking allied health education in exchange for service by those individuals in rural and other medically underserved areas with allied health personnel shortages.

There are a number of organizations supporting this bill, and I thank them for that support. Among them, the list includes, but is not limited to:

Washington State Hospital Association

Health Work Force Institute (Seattle, WA)

American Association for Respiratory Care

American Association of Community Colleges

American Clinical Laboratory Association

American Dental Hygienists' Association

American Dietetic Association

American Health Information Management Association

American Physical Therapy Association

American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science

American Society for Clinical Pathology

American Society of Radiologic Technologists

Association of Academic Health Centers

College of Health Deans

Midwest Regional Deans Group

Myositis Association

National Association of EMS Educators

National Cancer Registrars Association

National Network of Health Career Programs in Two-Year

Colleges

Northeast Regional Deans Group

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I wish to clarify the intent of legislation I introduced yesterday, S. 2457. Certainly, I would like to ensure that the record reflects my intention in introducing this bill.

The provisions contained in S. 2457 mirror those contained in Section 3116 of the fiscal year 2005 Department of Defense authorization bill, which pertain to the reclassification of high-level radioactive waste. Let me be clear: I oppose these provisions. I hope the majority of my colleagues will oppose these provisions as well. I introduced this legislation for the purpose of demonstrating to my colleagues that

issues within the scope of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 do not belong within the jurisdiction of the Senate Armed Services Committee. This was an issue of some debate on the floor yesterday, and I am pleased that the parliamentarian has in fact referred this legislation to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, of which I am a member. I hope the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee will take note of this fact when debate resumes on Sec. 3116 of his bill after the Memorial Day Recess. A policy shift this significant requires substantial public debate within the committee of primary jurisdiction.

I would also like to respond to a few of the comments made by the distinguished Senator from Colorado, Mr. Allard, earlier today. First, he noted that the Armed Services Committee discussed the issue of waste incidental to reprocessing at two hearings earlier this year. Again, the Armed Services Committee is not the committee of jurisdiction for issues related to nuclear waste cleanup policy, as has now been affirmed by the Senate's parliamentarian. Second, a hearing at which the concept of ``incidental'' waste is discussed is not at all the same as a legislative hearing on a specific proposal. To my knowledge, the language to which I object in Sec. 3116 of the DoD authorization bill has never previously been introduced as stand-alone legislation. And if it had, it would not have been referred to the Armed Services Committee. Thus, we have had no legislative hearings on the Senator from South Carolina's proposal.

Lastly, the Senator from Colorado has misstated my position with regard to removal of Hanford's underground tanks, which contain 53 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste. As I stated clearly on the floor last evening, the cleanup plan at Hanford, as outlined in the TriParty agreement, does not include removal of these tanks from the ground. As I stated previously, I agree with the State of Washington's current thinking on this matter. Digging up these tanks would pose a number of unnecessary risks, and that is not a concept now on the table. I hope that the Senator from Colorado will take note of this fact.

I look forward resuming debate on these matters of such tremendous importance when the Senate returns from the Memorial Day Recess.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on the Graham amendment.

It is almost unbelievable that we are on the DOD authorization bill, a very important bill that we need to discuss and move forward, as it supports a lot of important things for our troops, and our military strategy. But somehow the other side of the aisle and the Department of Energy think they can sneak in language to this Defense authorization bill that would allow the reclassification of hazardous, high-level nuclear waste and basically call it incidental waste. Basically it would reclassify nuclear waste that is in existing tanks in my State, in South Carolina, in Idaho, and in New York, and basically say that waste can be covered over with cement, with sand, and could be grouted. Basically, it says we can take high-level nuclear waste and grout it-- grout it.

For most Americans, grout is something they see in their bathroom, not something they do with nuclear waste. Yet this is what we have before us in the underlying Department of Defense authorization bill. It is a shame. It is a shame that this body would allow such a significant change, really a change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act on how nuclear waste is classified in this country, without public debate, without a public vote, without a public hearing, even without legislation discussing that change. Yet the other side of the aisle thinks they can come at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and offer an amendment to change 30 years of policy, and that in the blink of an eye, they are going to get a vote on changing that policy without discussion.

The underlying bill is flawed. As far as I am concerned, it has made the whole DOD bill radioactive itself. Why do they play politics on an issue that is so important to our country? Why do they try to sneak through a change that ought to be debated in public in full daylight, with people weighing in on what is appropriate science?

Mr. President, if I sound as if I am a little upset about this underlying bill and the fact that it has this sneak attack language to reclassify high-level nuclear waste, you are right.

Fifty-three million gallons of nuclear waste reside at the Hanford nuclear reservation in the State of Washington.

This Senator wants to see that waste cleaned up. I do not believe that can happen by pouring cement on top of it and putting sand in those tanks and all of a sudden now say we have cleaned up waste. Nowhere has that policy been promulgated as sound science.

This is a picture of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and one of its reactors in proximity to the Columbia River. My constituents in Washington State already know the 53 million-gallon tanks of nuclear waste are leaking, and there are toxic plumes that have already gained access to the Columbia River. So, yes, Washington State wants the tanks to be cleaned up. They want the material that has been part of the nuclear mission of this country removed from the tanks, the tanks cleaned up, the ground cleaned up, the plumes removed to the best possible extent, in order for us to go on with our mission and our life at the Hanford Reservation.

What we do not want is somebody to come in and say all of a sudden these underground storage tanks that exist below ground should be taken and cement poured on top of them and that means they are cleaned up.

It is amazing to me because when I think about the Hanford project and what I think it meant to our country, these were men and women in 1943 who started on a mission to produce a product that would help us win the war. In less than 2 years, they had the world's first reactor going and they produced plutonium that provided a very valuable tool for our country. Those men and women did their job.

Now we have been left with the aftermath of that and we should handle it in the same professional way those men and women did, by cleaning up the waste and recognizing that these tanks are leaking and they are causing hazard to the environment. The appropriate way to clean them up is by making sure the material is removed and that that material is placed in a more permanent storage. That is exactly what science has been saying. Yet my colleagues believe that in this underlying bill, the Defense authorization, it

was somehow appropriate, in a closed-door session, with no public, no public testimony, no public witness to this language, no bill saying they were going to put this in the DOD bill, they can now sneak through this policy.

Well, thank God some people in America are paying attention because they are starting to respond. I will share some of that with my colleagues. For example, the Idaho Falls Post Register basically said those on the other side are choosing the wrong side.

What happened in this case is the Department of Energy--maybe I should stop for a second and give some of my colleagues a little reminder of how we got to this point, because everybody thinks reclassification of waste is something that belongs to the States. It does not belong to the States. It belongs in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that was passed in 1982. That was passed by Congress, after much debate. It went through the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the EPW Committee. They had a discussion about what nuclear waste cleanup should be. They have the authority.

So when the Department of Energy recently said ``let us accelerate the cleanup of waste, let us do it faster, we have an idea, instead of removing all of the material from these tanks we can just pour cement and sand on top of it and somehow we can get this done quicker and cheaper''--I am sure everybody in America agrees that pouring sand and cement on top of the waste that is there instead of cleaning it up is cheaper. But no one says it is safer and no one says it satisfies current law in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

That is why when the Department of Energy tried to use an order basically reclassifying waste, saying, ``let us try this accelerated cleanup, let us try this notion of grouting and see if it, in fact, is the way we can do this.'' The courts have said the Department of Energy does not have that authority to reclassify the waste; the definition lies within the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and DOE was not consistent with that act.

So what did the Department of Energy do when they lost that case? Yes, it is on appeal. They can go through the appeal process. But instead of coming to Congress and asking for public hearings on changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, saying, ``listen, we think some waste that ought to be able to be reclassified,'' they have snuck language into the DOD authorizing bill.

Let me be clear again. Sneaking in language is having a closed-door session, without public debate, without public scrutiny, without a hearing on the change in this reclassification.

Now all of a sudden we are presented with this bill and people think we ought to move ahead without removing this radioactive language that is in the DOD bill, which I say has no business being here. If people want to debate this policy, let us debate it in the broad daylight of a hearing and discuss what hazardous waste is and the changes to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that might be appropriate.

I guarantee, if somebody wants to change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, that bill would not go to the Senate Armed Services Committee. It would be a policy that was debated by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and by the EPW Committee. It is not the Armed Services Committee's jurisdiction to change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. This underlying bill basically will put in place language contradictory to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

What are newspapers around America saying about this? Basically, the Idaho Falls Post Register says, ``if the courts are uncooperative, try blackmail. That is what DOE is doing by holding $350 million in cleanup funds, including $95 million for Idaho's national engineering and environmental laboratory.

They go on to say, ``if blackmail fails, start cutting deals in secret with Congress. DOE found an ally and behind closed doors in the Senate Armed Services Committee won a provision in the Defense authorization bill that would allow DOE to reclassify the high-level Savannah River waste.''

I think they said it best when they said the view from Boise is more accurate, and that Kempthorne, the Governor, believes the measure ``would wreck Idaho's position in the court by setting a precedent in short order, it would undermine the State's landmark decision.''

It goes on to say: ``Why would you reward DOE for its heavyhandedness against the State by passing something in the committee with the thinnest of claims to jurisdiction? If the Nuclear Waste Policy Act needs revision, do so in the open. Hold hearings. Conduct them in germane committees. What is going on here is not science, it is bare- knuckle politics.'' That is from the Idaho paper.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer said a similar thing: ``The Senate should halt the nuclear waste plan.'' Why? Because the bill gives the DOE the reclassification authority and withholds funds, and that this is a scheme to reclassify, hoping the States will cave in. It is not a good idea.

What did the Idaho Statesman say? Well, basically in a headline that said ``State Cleanup Faces An All or All Proposition,'' it said: ``We expect the Feds to clean up and move out all the highly radioactive liquid waste now stored in Idaho. No haggling, no shortcuts. Our political leaders need to hold firm even when politicians in other States are willing to cut deals.''

What did the Spokesman Review in my State say? I thought the Spokesman Review had an interesting take. They said: ``For example, let us say the next step would be to persuade the affected parties and the public there is scientific consensus on this matter. Without that, there will be no hope of political consensus. The U.S. Department of Energy believes leaving some waste behind is a good idea but is trying to slip this in as a seismic policy shift in the Defense authorization bill without comment or without congressional debate.''

I think these newspapers have it right. In fact, another newspaper in my State, the Tacoma News Tribune, said: ``It was bad enough that the U.S. Department of Energy was trying to carry out illegal, quick, and dirty disposal of the Nation's most dangerous radioactive waste. Now a Senate committee is helping the Department circumvent the law.''

I think these newspapers are on to it. The Buffalo News, in their editorial, called it ``A Dangerous Game.''

The Federal Department of Energy is trying to use

administrative sleight of hand to avoid its responsibilities

in the cleanup of nuclear waste at West Valley and several

other sites. DOD is trying to downgrade the threat of nuclear

waste altered in this bill. The department argues that the

waste should be classified as high level based only on how it

originated, not on what they are. But what they are still is

bad. It's still radioactive and it's still a Federal

responsibility.

That is from the Buffalo News.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have all those editorials printed in the Record.

Mr. President, let's go back for a second to what this issue is as it relates to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and what the underlying change in this bill does. That is the question at hand.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle hope we can get rid of this issue in one afternoon--again, without public debate, without the scrutiny of changing the definition of highly radioactive waste. They think we should just pass what is in the underlying bill. It has only seen the daylight because of the objections of myself and other colleagues and the scrutiny of the press. That is what has gotten them now to offer the amendment on the floor. The amendment on the floor is not sufficient to strike the language relating to the reclassification of waste.

So what is the issue? In 1982, when we passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act--I wasn't here but other Members were--basically we came up with a definition. We said:

Highly radioactive material resulting from the processing

of spent nuclear fuel, including the liquid waste produced in

the reprocessing. . . .

That is what this reactor did for us in World War II. It basically processed spent nuclear fuel and that liquid waste was then stored in tanks still at Hanford.

That the solid material derived from such waste that

contains fission products in sufficient concentrations. . . .

So that is what we said high-level radioactive waste was. We went on to add to the definition:

Highly radioactive material that the Commission says is

consistent with the law requires permanent isolation.

That is what we said in 1982, that the spent fuel from these reactors required permanent isolation. That is what the current law says. The current law says spent fuel requires permanent isolation. That means you have to remove it from the tanks that are there, because the tanks are leaking and you cannot guarantee permanent isolation.

So the tanks have started to be cleaned up and the process for cleaning them up is underway. But now the Department of Energy wants to say, ``let's have a new definition of that.'' In fact, in the underlying DOD bill, in section 3116, it basically says:

High-level radioactive waste does not include radioactive

material resulting from the processing of spent nuclear fuel.

How about that? One change in the DOD bill and billions of gallons of waste in my State is no longer high-level radioactive nuclear waste. Just like that, changing the definition. Yes, it says the Secretary can determine whether various hurdles have been scaled, but that is contradictory to the current law in the 1982 act.

I remind my colleagues this is an act that was passed through this body after hearings, after discussion. I think the process may have taken more than a year. It took more than a year to define high-level radioactive waste. Yet now we want to pass the DOD authorizing bill with this change in it and basically say, ``let's go ahead and reclassify nuclear waste.''

I am not for reclassifying nuclear waste without a debate and a discussion and, frankly, the notion that this underlying bill would reclassify it in such an inappropriate fashion, to say you could somehow call this grouting and that this would be a sufficient way to deal with the country's nuclear waste, is incredible. It is incredible that this is the scam being used on the American public just to get this process in place.

Let's go through some of the history, because as I said, I think this is really sour grapes by the Department of Energy, which has tried to get this policy pushed through and has not been successful. In fact, in 2001, basically, the Department said that they would re-create a better cleanup process. But, they said, we obviously have to get States to agree.

They came to us in Washington State and we said: We have an agreement with you about the level of waste that is going to be cleaned up under the requirements of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, so we don't really know what you mean by reclassification. At that time they refused to say that they meant they would clean up 99 percent, or all that was technically possible, of this waste.

So we in Washington State said: Listen, it doesn't sound like you have a serious plan for reclassifying waste when you just want to call it a different name. That is not an appropriate process. In fact, Washington State decided not to do that.

Wisely enough, the Idaho court basically said DOE didn't have that ability, they didn't have the ability to reclassify that waste. That is exactly why they are trying to sneak this language in today, because they would like to

continue to say that they can move ahead on a plan that, sure, would save money, but who wants to save money by leaving nuclear waste in the ground, where it is leaking into the Columbia River or the Savannah River, or other areas of the country?

If somebody thinks this is an issue that affects the State of Washington, or affects just Idaho, or affects South Carolina--it doesn't. These are bodies of water, with the potential of nuclear waste in them, that flow through many parts of our country. To pass legislation without debate on changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is an incredible statement, that people are willing to override 30 years of law just to do that.

There are other issues I think we need to talk about. I am very pleased the Governor of Idaho, Governor Kempthorne, issued a release saying:

Federal legislation undermines the cleanup that was to take

place in Idaho, at the Idaho facility.

In fact, Governor Kempthorne has said his opposition to the legislation that was passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee is because it allows the Secretary of Energy to withhold an estimated $95 million from cleanup funds, which is part of the debate we are going to have on the underlying amendment. But then he goes on to say:

I recognize the need to ensure public confidence in how we

manage nuclear waste. This legislation would be a huge step

backwards, reinforcing public fears about our Nation walking

away from nuclear cleanup obligations. I am also concerned

this legislation will negatively impact DOE's compliance with

the 1995 court settlement case in Idaho.

I think Governor Kempthorne, who has to deal with this, just as Governor Locke does in the State of Washington, has realized what a bad deal this is for Idaho. He realizes the underlying language, when it tries to reclassify waste, is a danger.

I find it interesting that we will forget the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, no problem. We will write our own rule about what hazardous waste is. We will come up with our own definition.

The states of Washington, Idaho, Oregon, South Carolina, New Mexico, and New York filed into the court case and in their amicus brief said:

DOE cannot ignore Congress' intent . . . by simply calling

[high level] waste by a different name.

South Carolina joined that case. South Carolina went to the courts, put its name on a brief, objecting to the DOE attempt to reclassify high-level nuclear waste by issuing an order.

Why all of a sudden are we now going to listen to one State tell us they have the right to decide they are going to keep nuclear waste in their State and they are going to call it something else? Nuclear waste that reaches the Savannah River does not affect just South Carolina, and a definition in statute that conflicts with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act does not just affect South Carolina; it affects everyone. That is not the way to legislate, by sneaking it in without having full public debate about this issue and the obligations we have for nuclear waste cleanup.

What has the Atomic Energy Commission said? Basically, it said in 1970 that over the life of these tanks, basically you have a problem. Basically, what you are saying when you assume that you will take those Hanford tanks or Savannah River tanks or Idaho tanks or West Valley tanks, and you are going to leave material in them and somehow put cement over the top of them and everything will be okay--that is counter to all the science we have had for 50 years.

The Atomic Energy Commission said ``over periods of centuries,''-- guess what, that is what happens when you leave it in the tanks for a long period of time; you are talking about centuries--``one cannot assure the continuity of surveillance and care which tank storage requires.''

(Mr. CRAPO assumed the Chair.)

They are saying if you put in high-level waste, we cannot tell what will happen to that over a long period of time. That is why the decision was made to take it out and put it in a permanent storage facility somewhere else, because these tanks do not have the capacity.

The science says that once you do the grouting of this waste, unfortunately, your opportunity to do other things is much more difficult. Once you have poured cement on the ground and solidified it, the process of getting it out and retrieving it is made immensely more difficult. In fact, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in 2004 said:

Grouting residual high-level waste in tanks that contain

significant quantities of long lived radionuclides . . . Is a

policy that poses considerable risk to the long-term health

of the water resources in the region.

This statement is from 2004. In 2004, people have said this grouting technique, which basically is storing this in the leaking position in underground tanks, is a threat to the water resources of the region. These tanks are not more than 7 miles from the Columbia River, not 7 miles from one of the major water resources of the Pacific Northwest. It already has a plume of nuclear waste that has reached the river. Fortunately, it is at a level that we can contain today but only if we continue to clean up the tanks.

This proposal to pour cement and sand on top of it and just keep the waste in the ground has not been proven as a secure way to keep the waste intact and water resources clean. So what you are leaving us with in the Pacific Northwest--in Washington, in Oregon, in the tributaries feeding in and out of the Columbia River and into the Pacific Ocean--is the threat of 50 million gallons of nuclear waste not being cleaned up in a sufficient fashion and that waste ending up in the Columbia River. Or in the South Carolina, Savannah River. Governor Kempthorne said it right: this is a huge step backward because it reinforces the public fears about this process.

This Senator wants to have the nuclear waste cleaned up in our State. Some people may not understand the process, or some people listening to this debate may even think this is somehow about four or five States in this country. It is not about four or five States in this country and just about whether we will change the definition of high-level radioactive waste and what we will do about the definition.

That is what I am concerned about today in the underlying bill. This Nation has a responsibility--as it had a responsibility in development of the reactors, the development of the plutonium, and the development of that product--this Nation has a responsibility for the cleanup of those facilities. Oftentimes my colleagues forget about that responsibility until it comes time to do the budget and people see the huge amount of money that is spent on nuclear waste cleanup.

I would be the first Senator to say we have made mistakes in this process. It is mind-boggling to think prior to my coming here that at one point in time somebody gave contracts to a company to produce vitrified logs, and they were not going to pay them until they made the vitrification work. Somewhere along the way people figured that would not work, that the vitrification process was not underway and operating. But now we have been successful and vitrification is starting to take place. That means we are taking the nuclear waste out of the ground and solidifying it into a glass log substance and that glass log substance will then go to permanent storage. So it will be in a facility that can help store that product for an indefinite period of time. That has been the plan. That is the plan on the books. That is the plan of record.

But that is not what the DOE authorizing bill does. It says, ``no, let's reclassify that waste and say that it is not high level. Let's just call it another name, let's call it grout and say it is okay to keep in the ground, let it contaminate water, and let's keep the savings from that unbelievable shortcutting of our responsibilities in the cleanup process.'' I don't think that is something we want to do as a body and government.

I would like to talk about how this legal process worked and why DOE is attempting to do this. What my colleagues seem to want to think today is that this is all about giving the State of South Carolina the ability to negotiate with DOE what nuclear waste cleanup should be. In fact, as I said, in the underlying bill, instead of saying that high- level waste is something that needs to be retrieved, basically that spent fuel from reactors is something

that needs to be retrieved from tanks and put in permanent storage, basically the DOE underlying bill says, no, high-level radioactive waste resulting from fuel process can be reconsidered and considered for a different kind of storage permanently in the tank. And that is something South Carolina and DOE can do together.

That is not what the cleanup partnership really is. The cleanup partnership is not about the State of South Carolina and the Federal Department of Energy interpreting the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in a new way by passing contradictory language.

Let's imagine for a second that we let the State of Michigan determine what the clean air standards are for the State of Michigan. Let's say that EPA and the State of Michigan decided, well, the clean air standards for Michigan are going to be at X level, and that somehow that is OK for Michigan, but somehow we do not think that is going to apply to the rest of the country.

Does anyone think that once it applies to Michigan, some other State is not going to say: How come you gave Michigan an exemption? They continue to pollute the air at a level that the rest of the country does not, which has a higher standard. We are talking about a recipe for disaster in the courts and for predictability in the process. I think it is very detrimental, where we are going with this legislation.

The court process that took place is now on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court. We are still waiting for a decision. I think the appropriate thing for the Department of Energy to do, while they are waiting for their decision on appeal, is to say they want to come to Congress and have hearings on changing radioactive waste definitions, that they want to come and have a discussion about that.

I appreciate the fact the Senator from Michigan, Mr. Levin, as this issue was discussed in the Armed Services Committee, understood the dangerous precedence of this language, and understood how important it was to get the DOD bill done. He basically asked that they not include that language in the bill.

Now, it was a closed-door session. I do not know what the real vote was. I am sure it was a closely, hotly debated issue. But, really, what they put in was section 3116, which would overturn 30 years of carefully crafted laws and 50 years of scientific consensus related to the cleanup of the Nation's radioactive defense waste.

As written, this provision--because it allows DOE to reclassify waste that, as I said, for decades has been classified as high-level waste-- basically says the radioactive and chemical toxic components would stay the same. So basically the same toxic level of waste is there, but we are just going to call it another name. I appreciate the fact that the Senator from Michigan tried to change this language and prevent it from being in the bill. Unfortunately, it is in the underlying bill before us.

The underlying bill before us also created a slush fund of $350 million. I find it intriguing. I love knowing a little bit about software because when you share documents and you basically try to make changes to documents, and you e-mail those around to everybody, you can look at the text and see where the changes came from. It is very interesting, this legislation was proposed by a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. But when you check on who was really the author of the legislation, when you look at who was making the changes to the legislation, it was the Department of Energy.

The Department of Energy wrote the statute and basically submitted it to the committee, and tried to make it look like it was a Member's idea. This is coming straight from the Department of Energy, that lost a court battle, and does not want to wait for an appeal, does not want to come here and fight their battle in the daylight, but wants to try to sneak language in a bill, in the hopes these people will blink on a Thursday afternoon. Well, I am not prepared to have this bill move forward without having this discussion today about this change.

Now, what was DOE's great idea that they submitted through a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee? What was their wonderful idea? Well, besides reclassifying waste, they decided, ``well, let's create a $350 million slush fund that gives the Secretary of Energy the authority to withdraw cleanup funds from the States of South Carolina, Washington, and Idaho--until they agree with our reclassification plan.'' Basically, it was to hold them hostage and blackmail them into agreeing.

As I said, when the State of Washington was offered this deal 2 years ago, we said: ``We are not taking any deal unless we understand what you are cleaning up and how you are cleaning it up. The fact that you think you are going to reclassify and rename this is not good enough for us. Let's see the details.'' When they refused to show us that they planned on cutting cleaning up all this waste, we refused to accept the deal. Now they are hoping they will buy off some other State.

If the Department of Energy really believes science is on their side, if it really believes this grouting technique works, if it really believes this is the process we ought to pursue, then come before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, come before the EPW Committee, and debate a change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the policy that defines highly radioactive waste and how it should be cleaned up.

I think it is a tragedy, especially when you think about the good job the people did at Hanford, the process by which these people speedily got to the business of helping us in World War II, in the cold war years, and providing us with help and support. They got the job done. They did their job. Now it is our turn to do our job and clean this up.

When you are talking about 100 million gallons of highly radioactive waste that is stored in 253 deteriorating tanks in all of these States--as I said, at Hanford we have 53 million gallons of this tank waste, about 60 percent of the whole national inventory. So 60 percent is in Washington State, along with other high level waste stored in the Hanford 200-Area. That includes spent fuel and miscellaneous volumes that contain high-level waste from offsite which are also buried in the ground.

I am all for considering new technology and new ways to clean up waste and to retrieve waste that is buried in the ground that is considered high-level waste, which may have come from other States or have been basically brought to the Hanford Reservation. Some has been dumped on the Hanford Reservation and then has been part of the storage there for some time, but that is a different issue.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act makes it very clear that spent nuclear fuel from reactors needs to be placed in a permanent isolated area. That does not mean pouring cement in tanks and calling it incidental. It is very clear about that. So we can talk about other technologies to clean up other kinds of waste, or we can come back and debate changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. But because 67 of the 177 tanks that we have in Washington State have already leaked 1 million gallons of waste into the ground, that is 1 million gallons of nuclear waste, this Senator does not take this issue lightly.

DOE estimates that at Hanford, 270 billion gallons of ground water is contaminated above the drinking water standards across 80 miles of this site, and that plumes containing numerous toxins have reached the Columbia River.

I think we have another picture of the Hanford site. I encourage all my colleagues, at some point in time, to go to the Hanford site. This site is in Washington State, but this is a Federal responsibility. It is a Federal responsibility to clean up nuclear waste. It is not just the province or jurisdiction of four or five States in the country. We spend budget money on this issue, and we need to get the job done.

You can see one scene of the Hanford reservation, which is almost as big as--a third of the size--the State of Rhode Island. It is an immense property. I know the senior Senator from Washington State has joined me, and she can tell you--because she was instrumental in getting the Hanford Reach Monument created, preserving some of this as a national monument for us. On the one hand we are preserving it as a national monument and then deciding one day we are going to take high- level radioactive waste, rename it, let the plume that is already reaching the Columbia River to stay in the ground, and that somehow by putting cement

and sand on it, we are all going to be OK.

Everybody wants to say how much cheaper that proposal is. I think everybody in America gets how cheap it would be to pour concrete and sand. What they want to know is whether it is safe, whether it is the right technology, whether it is going to stop the plumes or leaking tanks, whether you are going to change the current law first to get there.

This is a beautiful, pristine area of our country that we can preserve, but only if we do the job we are responsible to do, as the people who created the B reactor and created this facility were responsible in doing.

To be irresponsible today by offering this on the DOD authorizing bill and thinking we are going to have a debate about it in a few short hours and change 30 years of law and 50 years of science is shameful. It is shameful that we think we can have this kind of discussion in a few hours and wrap up a decision. If people are so sure about their position, then hold the public hearings and have the debate. Because these tanks are leaking and one million gallons have already leaked in my State. It is not something that is a tomorrow issue.

What about the science? Let's go back, so my colleagues are clear about how we got here. Congress required DOE to clean up these sites and make it a priority, and they did that in that 1982 act. That act reflected science dating back to 1950, when the National Academy of Sciences recognized that high-level radioactive waste, such as the waste at Hanford, must remain isolated from human beings and the environment long enough for the radioactivity to decay. That is a long process.

That is why the Atomic Energy Commission, a precursor to the Department of Energy, also recognized something must be done to treat high-level radioactive waste in the tanks and at these DOE sites, and they referred to ``over a period of centuries.'' As I said earlier, this isn't a problem where you think about it for a few years or even a decade. You have to come up with a solution for centuries.

Over a period of centuries, the Atomic Energy Commission wrote in 1970, ``one cannot assure the continuity of surveillance of care with storage tanks.'' Basically they said, you can't get it done with storage tanks. So the science has not changed since then.

Yet there are provisions in this bill where DOE says, let's throw out the science. And the provision in this bill would allow DOE to take 50 years of science and leave an indeterminate amount of toxic sludge in these leaky tanks and simply say: Mission accomplished. I think we have heard that statement before.

What science says is that grouting residual high-level waste in tanks that contain significant quantities of long-lived radionuclides is a policy that possesses considerable risk to the long-term health of the water resources of the region. That is what science says.

The grouting proposal that is in this bill is a considerable risk. In the State of Washington, we are very familiar with this. In Washington State, thank God our Department of Ecology has had strong reservations about grouting and we have vocalized those. For us, because it is 50 million gallons of this highly radioactive waste, it would have to have been a plan for durability for 10,000 years. That is what you would have to have. That is how radioactive the waste is.

What is bothersome is when people say an indeterminate amount, that is what DOE can decide. An indeterminate amount? The last 8 percent of the waste in the tanks has 50 percent of the radioactivity. Think about that. So we are saying in this underlying bill, go ahead, DOE. Leave an indeterminate amount in the tanks. Maybe they will say let's leave 10 percent. Maybe they will say, let's leave 5 percent. We know at 8 percent it is 50 percent of the radioactivity.

We think the grouting plan is something that is not the way to go. We set it aside in Washington State. We said that basically glassifying or vitrifying the waste was the way to go. That means that process of turning it into a glass structure so it is a solid structure and taking it to permanent storage was a better way to go.

As I said, in 2002, DOE wanted to use this accelerated initiative. We in Washington State had people come and talk to us about what accelerated cleanup was and what the schedule would be on high-level waste. And we said: We want to understand how you are going to comply with the agreements that are already on the table and with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, with the triparty agreement, because this isn't the first time the Department of Energy has had debates with the State about their responsibilities for cleanup.

I can't imagine that there is an OMB director or a DOE executive who does not come to that post and look at the numbers involved in cleanup and basically says: Boy, there has to be a way we can get this done quicker and cheaper. I am all about getting it done quicker, given that I have a million gallons already leaking and running into the Columbia River. I am all about quicker. But I am not about a plan that has not been verified by science, that has not had a hearing in a full committee as to this process and what it will mean.

Everybody gets the quick factor, but who said cleaning up nuclear waste in America should be about doing it on the cheap? It is about doing it the right way. As the Atomic Energy Commission said, it is about keeping it out of the reach of humans for centuries.

Subsequently DOE has insisted upon researching new technologies for the treatment of Hanford tanks, this new form of grout, cast stone, steam reforming, and different forms of vitrification. In all, I think there were three cases. DOE said they would still retrieve waste from the tanks, but try to treat it and bury it in steel containers and lined trenches in the Hanford site.

I can tell you, even the new and improved grout was quickly rejected by the State of Washington and by other scientists.

According to the officials at the Washington State Department of Ecology, grouting would have violated the State requirement that any alternative waste that was not performed at the vitrification objected to. And, in addition, the State found that this grouting would still pose ground water risks and create leaching; furthermore, that this would violate drinking water standards.

Even more interesting is the fact that the grouting was not to be found more efficient. In some instances, grouting wasn't found to be any cheaper than other options of cleaning up the tanks. While everybody says that pouring cement and sand on this is a great way to clean up nuclear waste, most people figured out that leaking would still happen and that nuclear waste would still need to be removed. They figured out that it was even more expensive to remove than waste.

So those are the scenarios with which we are dealing. Those are the scenarios that have been discussed. This debate--whether we want to reclassify nuclear waste and call it low-level waste and say we are going to grout it--might be new to some of my colleagues in the Senate as to. But for the State of Washington, we already said this plan wasn't acceptable science, and that reclassification was something we didn't think we should go along with, when DOE wasn't willing to give us a definition on how they were going to clean up the waste.

So this is very difficult because the tanks holding sludge and salt cake and hard heels--this would mean the waste in those tanks would not be penetrated to remove and segregate the radionuclides. The hazardous material would not be separated out and removed. It means those tanks would not be thoroughly mixed without the right level of product. Basically, what they found is that grout, as engineered, is not an option that protects human health and the environment for such a significant portion of tank waste, when we don't know the definition, because it is an indeterminate amount of tank waste.

As I said, even the last 8 percent of tank waste includes 50 percent of the radioactivity. How do you know, by using this grouting process, that you have successfully rendered this a nonhazardous substance? So grout as an in-tank treatment for significant waste volume will be, as I said, probably more expensive than other routes when we find out that it is not successful.

The best science says is don't hold States hostage by reclassifying waste

and telling them we are not going to give them money for cleanup unless they agree to our definition. This definition is something that the Department of Energy thinks they can come up with on their own. But the courts have determined that DOE doesn't have that authority.

The courts have not sided in DOE's favor. The courts have not said don't go ahead with cleanup. They didn't say you cannot move forward on cleaning up the tanks. The courts said: DOE cannot move forward on its plan of reclassifying waste and saying that it is a grout process and that is going to work. It says you cannot move forward on that.

So back to the underlying bill and what happened in the Defense authorization bill. There was an amendment that would enable the Department of Energy to exempt an intermediate amount of highly radioactive waste from regulation as high-level radioactive waste.

I am reading from legal counsel's interpretation of this underlying provision in the DOD bill. This interpretation says the amendment would allow the Department of Energy to continue to store waste long thought destined for deep geologic repository in existing storage tanks or send them to waste isolation pile-up plants or low-level radioactive waste burial sites. It also would exempt the Department's handling of those wastes from the license and regulation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It will, in short, overturn the fundamental legal principles that have governed the disposal of these wastes for the past 30 years.

This legal briefing goes on to point out--which I think is very important--that for nearly half a century, when the DOE and its predecessors made plutonium for their nuclear weapons, they did so by irradiating uranium fuel, transforming it into plutonium, and reprocessing the spent fuel, as I showed in the picture with the reactor. And that became high-level radioactive waste. This is the term given to the plutonium spent fuel from the reactors was high-level waste.

So what did the Nuclear Waste Policy Act say? In 1981, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act said: Let's establish a comprehensive program for the disposal of this spent nuclear fuel, and put it in deep geologic repositories licensed by the Commission.

So let me be clear about this point, because I am sure we will hear about this in the debate. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was given the responsibility of the deep geological repository license procedure. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was not given the responsibility for these low-level tanks. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was not given the responsibility to interpret this change in the DOD bill as it relates to whether this is a cleanup plan and whether they can license it because that is not their responsibility. Their responsibility, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is on Yucca Mountain and the deep geological solution. That is what their responsibility is.

The act directed the President to decide whether high-level radioactive defense waste should be disposed of in the same repository as civilian waste, or in a separate repository. So in 1985, President Reagan decided this defense waste should be put in the same repository as civilian waste.

The 1982 act defines high-level radioactive waste. We had a decision by the President in 1985 that military waste should be treated as civilian waste, and that the civilian waste should be put in the same spot.

So that is the plan we have been on. Now, I have had some concerns about how much waste you are actually going to take out of Hanford because, I tell you what, I want more than 17 percent of the waste taken from Hanford to go to Yucca Mountain. I want it cleaned up and I want it in a permanent place.

I don't want grouting and I don't want to have plumes continuing to leak. But that was the decision made in 1985, and the President made that decision. They said, let's vitrify this waste, glassify it, take it out of the tanks, turn it into glass logs, and take that to a site for permanent storage, wherever that site is.

The plan, since 1985, has not been to pour cement and sand and create grout leaving some percentage, some indeterminate amount of waste in tanks.

I cannot emphasize how important it is if DOE believes in this philosophy, this science, if DOE thinks this is the successful course of discussion that should happen with spent nuclear fuel, then come to the broad daylight of a Senate hearing and make their case and put that before the appropriate Senate committees. If they are so proud of their science and the standing of their decision, they should have no problem doing that. As Governor Kempthorne of Idaho said, when you don't end up achieving public consensus, you don't do anybody any favors.

The issue is the Department of Energy knows all too well, because these States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and South Carolina challenged the Department of Energy in court, that these States do not believe this order or plan for reclassifying waste is sound science. They do not believe it is sound science. That is why they challenged it in court.

I know the Department of Energy knows they cannot waltz into the Senate hearing rooms and make their case without hearing the critiques of the experts who have been dealing with this issue for years and years. And by ``the experts,'' I mean not only the scientists, but the people who have to live with the economic and health consequences of having a million gallons of nuclear waste leak into the ground and make its way to the Columbia River. Those people are paying attention, and they are paying attention to the fact that this science is not standing the test of daylight and scrutiny. If it were, they would be here debating it.

I am saying to them now, this Senator, and I am sure members of other committees, welcomes the opportunity to understand this technology, to understand this new process, to understand exactly how taking some level of spent fuel from these reactors in these underground tanks and somehow pouring a grouting material on them is going to make for a successful cleanup effort.

I am sure my colleagues would love to hear if it actually saves billions of dollars and can be safe and sound science. But if that is the case, then we should not be in a rush today. After the courts have already said DOE does not have the authority to change this policy without the approval of Congress, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, my colleagues should not be in a hurry to pass this legislation that basically says in a contradictory form: Go ahead, DOE Secretary, reclassify the waste because nuclear waste from spent fuel does not have to be classified as highly radioactive.

The definition of highly radioactive waste that is used in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was initially modeled after the definition found in the West Valley demonstration project. That is a commercial site in New York. I am again reading from the legal opinion Energy counsel has provided to us.

It basically said waste produced by reprocessing of spent fuel, that it included both liquid waste and that waste directly from reprocessing and dry solid material derived from that solid waste.

In addition, it gave the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the authority to include other waste in the definition of such material. Significantly, West Valley gave the Commission power to add material other than reprocessing waste to the definition, but not to exempt any part of the processing of waste.

We have had this debate, and I know the Department of Energy objected to the definition. I know they wanted the regulatory agencies to be able to exclude material from high-level radioactive waste. I know that is what they wanted. But Congress rewrote the definition, not as the Department asked, but, as enacted, the final definition provides, as I said earlier, high-level radioactive waste means material from reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, and that other radioactive material that the Commission, consistent with existing law, determines requires permanent isolation.

That is the process by which we, as the legislative branch, have gotten to the point of making decisions about this incredible product that was made by men and women throughout our country in the 1940s. It was a time of great military need, during World War II and the cold war. And they did their job, as the federal government had asked.

Now we are saying we are going to ignore the definitions and the process and not really have a hearing on the Nuclear Waste Policy Act or the fact that the DOE has already been turned down in the courts in its ability to reclassify that waste.

Does the Senator have a question?

Does the Senator have a question?

Without yielding the floor.

Mr. President, I have some more material on the history of the process. I see 2 of my colleagues in the Chamber who are also very concerned about this issue, but I imagine at least another half hour or so longer, maybe more.

Does the Senator from Washington have a question?

I obviously want my colleagues to join in the debate on this issue, but the reason this Senator feels so strongly about this process is because I do believe this measure does not belong on the Defense authorization bill. We have a very important piece of legislation that needs to move through the process, and yet we have an entity the courts have turned down, that believes that States have turned them down, that believes this is a controversial issue, and thinks they ought to sneak it in on a DOD bill and that is a way to do legislation. It is not the way to do legislation.

This is the only opportunity we have to expose the fact this legislation has been drafted this way and the unbelievable effect it has on so many people in this country when the Department of Energy can author legislation and give it to a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who then offers it in a mark-up in private and includes it in the legislation.

I am going to take a little more time to go over these facts because I think the bright light of day needs to shine on the fact the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 ought to have the attention of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and ought to have the attention of the Environment and Public Works Committee and not be proposed on the Defense authorization bill without the scrutiny of public debate and foresight that such a huge, significant change in policy would bring about.

This is why I am going to take as much time as necessary to explain this policy and to say to the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that while any member has the ability to offer any amendment they want, including in an authorizing bill, usually it is the other way around. We have authorizing on appropriations and issues of that nature that have caused----

The Senator will yield for a question.

I thank the Senator for his question. The issue is that the Senate Armed Services Committee should never have voted and considered this legislation in a closed door session without those hearings. So I certainly want the Member to be heard but--I think I have the floor, Mr. President.

I think I have the floor, Mr. President, and I will yield in a moment for another question.

The issue is that we have been trying to work with the author of this legislation on a compromise that would promote a dialog and a hearing. My staff has been working diligently since the language came out of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

This morning we learned without warning, without notice, that perhaps now they did not want to continue discussion on that, they did not want to continue discussion on how we brought this issue to light.

I really did not want to spend the afternoon on the Senate floor. We had hoped we would actually propose a better process and procedure, but others want to move forward on changing the underlying bill, which in this amendment is still flawed. The proposed amendment by Senator Graham of South Carolina makes a bad situation slightly better but does not correct the underlying problem. And this Senator whose home state has one million gallons of nuclear waste flowing to the Columbia River--is going to be heard on the details of this proposal.

The fact that we have not had a full public hearing on a significant change in 30 years of policy and 50 years of science is something that, if it takes me 5 hours to explain, I will take it. I will take the 5 hours to explain to my colleague the significance of these changes.

I will yield to the Senator for a question.

I thank the Senator for his question, but under rule XXV, the Armed Services Committee has jurisdiction over national security aspects of nuclear energy, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee has jurisdiction over nonmilitary development of nuclear energy, and the EPW Committee has jurisdiction over the nonmilitary environmental regulation and control of nuclear energy.

Undoubtedly SASC has jurisdiction over the reprocessing that created the tanks to begin with because DOE was responsible for the national security, but I do not see how anyone could seriously argue how the waste, disposal, and cleanup of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is a part of the national security aspect of the Senate Armed Services Committee's jurisdiction.

While I am more than happy that the committee has used this authority to bring this issue up, I think the committee is doing an injustice to say to our colleagues that a change that is in contradiction to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act ought to be passed by the committee without hearing, without debate, without full scrutiny of public daylight. This provision would really contradict 30 years of law on the books when the agency promulgating that rule change lost a court battle basically telling it it does not have the authority to redefine high-level nuclear waste.

I fully respect, because of all the committees that I work with, I know that the chairman of the Armed Services Committee always strives to be fair and balanced at his hearings. And

there are difficult challenges that we have had over many sensitive subjects in the last several weeks. The chairman has gone way out of his way to make sure the continuity of that committee works well and that the rules and processes are followed. But I say to the chairman that if the Department of Energy is so sure about these statutory changes they are promulgating through his committee without debate, then they ought to be willing to have the hearings and have the debates with the other committees that have jurisdiction for the cleanup, not the national security efforts the Senator was responsible for as the chairman of that committee.

I thank the chairman again for his statement. I point out to him that the difference between authorizing for appropriations and oversight of policy, and what I am debating is that the committee's oversight over nuclear waste cleanup policy as set out in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. When that was passed in 1982 and moved through the legislative branch and made its way through the debates, it was debated in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and EPW Committee. As the parliamentarian referred to those committees, I am sure that the SASC, because of its nature of the appropriated funds, has some responsibilities. But I do not think that the SASC is the committee of jurisdiction for changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. I do not think that is the primary responsibility of that committee.

So, I don't know. I say to the Senator, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I have a great deal of respect for his willingness at all times in the most difficult of situations to try to have consideration of issues be as fair and balanced as possible, and to give Members their opportunity. I am happy to continue to discuss with him the nuances of this particular issue. But I have a feeling that if we had this Nuclear Waste Policy Act before us today and we asked the Parliamentarian--this change that is in your bill, under a separate act, under a separate stand-alone bill--it would not be referred to that committee. It would be referred jointly to those other committees and maybe to SASC in the authorizing of an appropriation, but not for the policy change.

Mr. President, I think there are several other people here.

Without losing my right to the floor.

I simply want the issue to have the appropriate amount of debate and dialog. All of us will have the opportunity to vote up or down on any of the amendments anybody wants to offer to this section. But the question before us was, all of a sudden at 11:30 today, without notice, when we had been in negotiations on this language, to bring it to the floor, this Senator feels obligated to make sure this time period is used to bring committee members and colleagues up to speed about the contents of the underlying bill.

Yes.

That is correct.

That is correct. I will give my colleagues from Washington and South Carolina an opportunity to join in this debate and participate because I think it is very important that this issue receive the full attention of Members. As I said at the beginning of this discussion, I do not believe this is an issue--even though a lot of my colleagues would like to classify it as an issue that only affects Washington State, South Carolina, or Idaho perhaps with some impact on Oregon and maybe Georgia, or New York in its commercial facility. I have never thought of this nuclear waste issue as a geographic-specific debate.

Our responsibility as a body is to make sure nuclear waste cleanup happens in a process that the science determines will not be with harm to humans or to the environment. We now have a proposal before us that science says will be harmful, that is not based on sound science, that has not met the test, nor has our approval.

While I am willing to have this debate, I hope my colleagues will use this debate as an opportunity to understand our challenge on nuclear waste cleanup and the tremendous amount of resources that are spent by our Government on that cleanup and the efficiencies that need to happen to make that process go more smoothly than it has in the past.

But I can guarantee to my colleagues that wanting that process to go more smoothly in the future, and wanting it to be more cost effective, does not simply mean coming up with a short-term proposal, a fix that is counter to what existing statute and law is. If we want to have that debate, let's go through the normal committees and have that debate, and let's have the scientists come in and discuss it with us, and let's not end up with a process where we are going to be battling in the courts. I don't think that does any of us any good. Certainly, for us in the State of Washington, with a 1-million-gallon plume heading toward the Columbia River, it doesn't do us any good.

I hope my colleagues will use this opportunity to focus attention not just on the question at hand, of high-level radioactive waste, but I would say the consistency by which the States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, South Carolina, and others have banded together in the last year or two in authorizing and appropriations language that has done a good job to make sure the processing of radioactive waste is completed.

I remind my colleagues, this is the first time I think the Department of Energy has successfully picked off a State. At first the underlying language was actually blackmail: We are going to make this change and nuclear waste is going to be reclassified, and if you are going to agree with us, we will give you some money, and if you don't agree with us, we are not cleaning up your waste. That is blackmail. That is what the current language in the DOD authorizing bill is. It is blackmail.

Now, after my colleagues have seen what ludicrous language that is, Senator Graham wants to offer an amendment that will not tie up the funds. But we still remain with the underlying problem, which is the Department of Energy is trying to reclassify highly radioactive waste as low-level ancillary waste and say it can be grouted, that is that cement and sand can be poured on it and somehow, leaving incidental amount of tank waste is a sufficient way to clean up tanks.

I will continue to fight on this issue until Members understand the significant policy change that is before this body.

I ask unanimous consent after the remarks of Senator Inhofe that Senators Murray, Allard, and Hollings be recognized, and that I immediately be recognized after them.

I want to accommodate the Senator from Nevada. I was proposing to accommodate and trade off recognition of the four Members who are present on the floor?

Does the Senator have a question?

The Senator from Nevada--I am happy to yield the floor to the Senator from Nevada.

Does the Senator from Nevada have a question?

The Senator from Washington is happy to entertain a question that would allow the various Members who are here----

Mr. President, this Senator is happy to yield the floor to my colleague to discuss this issue. I want to make it clear that after 30 years of standard policy, they are not willing to just have a few hours of debate and then vote on this significant a change. The underlying Graham amendment does not fix the underlying DOD committee- passed authorization language that allows the Department of Energy to reclassify waste.

That is the key issue at hand. We do not want to leave this bill with this reclassification of highly radioactive waste to an amendment on spent fuel storage tanks to then be grouted over. We need to have the attention of this body, my colleagues who are members of the various committees I mentioned and my colleagues from those States directly affected, although I said it is a policy everybody should be discussing, and the public needs to have an idea and an opportunity to understand that this is a major policy proposal which is being proposed in this underlying bill.

I would have preferred that the Graham amendment not be brought up today, not to this particular issue of the DOD bill being discussed. We are still talking. We hoped we might able to work something out and save our colleagues the time and attention of studying a nuclear waste policy proposal and what level of radioactivity could be sufficiently removed from tanks and what couldn't be. But if my colleagues want to continue to pursue the subject, we are going to continue to pursue and discuss this issue.

With that, I know various Members of both sides of the aisle are waiting, and I will have more to say on this subject as we continue to debate the DOD authorizing bill and continue to debate whether the Graham amendment is sufficient in disposing of the problem that has now been created in the underlying bill in overriding 30 years of law and science about how this country should clean up nuclear waste. I don't believe anybody in America wants to do it on the cheap. We need to give the American public the certainty that this body will not propose major policy changes without hearings, without debate, without committees of jurisdiction having oversight of this policy proposal that is in the Defense authorization bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I take a few minutes to clarify points from the debate we had prior to moving off the DOE bill and the specifics of the Graham amendment.

I know my colleague, the Senator from South Carolina, is probably somewhere still in the vicinity of the Senate. I, too, admire the Senator from South Carolina on a variety of issues, particularly on National Guard issues and some of the challenges we have had, both coming from States that have been hard hit economically and challenged with a large number of people participating in our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. This issue that he and I disagree on obviously is one of utmost importance and certainly one that needs a lot of attention by the Members of this body. We will get that time and attention when we return to DOE after the recess.

I bring up a couple of points made that are the crux of my concern about this legislation; that is, that section 3116 of the underlying bill, the Defense authorization bill, attempts to reclassify high-level nuclear waste into a low-level material and allow it to be disposed of in a different way.

I object to that and I object to the process by which that legislation was drafted. The Senate Armed Services Committee does not have jurisdiction over the ability to reclassify waste. That is a change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act drafted in 1982. If the Department of Energy wants to have that debate, then the Department of Energy should come down here and have hearings before the appropriate committees and discuss that issue. But to have such a major policy change of 30 years' policy since 1982 and 50 years of science saying this is what high-level nuclear waste is and one day changing it in the DOD bill is beyond absurd. Obviously, that is why we have spent time this afternoon talking about it.

The chairman of the committee asked me in a question whether that committee has jurisdiction over the issue. I know that DOE many times has tried with various environmental issues to have them go through the Senate Armed Services Committee, environmental issues such as the Resource Conservation Recovery Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, the Endangered Species Act. All of those, even though they are DOE issues, do not go through the Senate Armed Services Committee. In fact, the committee even said they are not part of our issues. Those are environmental policies or policies for other committees and referred to those specific committees.

I read to my colleagues rule XXV earlier regarding what the jurisdiction of the Senate Armed Services Committee is. It is specific to the national interests that were necessary in creating nuclear fuel. That was an offshoot of the reactors used in the development of plutonium for our efforts in World War II and the cold war, but they do not have the legislative oversight of the cleanup policy. That is the prerogative of other committees, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee.

To make my point, I took section 3116 of this bill, this section that reclassifies waste, and introduced it today as my own legislation and asked for a referral. If we took this section on reclassification now as a stand-alone bill, let's see where it was referred to. That bill, Senate bill 2457, by Senator Cantwell, was referred to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. That proves my point, that this policy change is not the jurisdiction of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Senate Armed Services Committee should not try, in a closed- door session, in secrecy without having a public hearing, without having a public debate, to change policy of this significant nature which is not the jurisdiction of their committee.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that was also sent to the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman and ranking member asking them not to pass this legislation out of committee, and that it was the jurisdiction of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. President, I am trying to make the point that the ranking member of the committee, and now the parliamentarian, have agreed that this is not the jurisdiction of this committee.

I ask my colleagues to weigh that in the time we have away from here, to drop this policy as it relates to trying to reclassify waste without having the proper public hearing and public comment about the issues.

Yes, everyone has heard of DOE attempts to try to reclassify this waste. It is well known that they actually tried to do it by order themselves and were shot down in court. They were shot down in court because specifically they do not have the authority. They have to change the definition under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. If they want to do that, debate it on the Hill, have this discussion, and move forward.

I make a point that cleanup around America--whether it is in South Carolina, in the Savannah River, or whether it is Washington State at the Hanford reservation, whether it is Idaho or any other facility in this country--should be continuing. There is nothing about any court case or any court battle that prohibits the Department of Energy from continuing with cleanup. I hope they understand that is the judgment and the clarification of the court that ruled.

If my colleague from South Carolina is hearing that nuclear waste cleanup may be going slow or may be put on hold in the future, that is the absolute wrong message from the Department of Energy. Congress has appropriated funds, has appropriated funds in the past, and they should be going about their cleanup job.

What we are not going to do as a body is whitewash a change of significant nature where we do not have science backing that says we ought to reclassify this waste. In fact, science has been very specific in saying this is not a simple proposition.

In 1990, the National Academy of Science said:

There is strong worldwide consensus that the best, and

safest, long-term option for dealing with HLW is geologic

isolation.

Again, not grouting waste in existing tanks but removing the waste and putting it in a geological isolation, as we have suggested, and others have suggested, at Yucca Mountain.

A 1992 report by the Pacific Northwest Laboratory said:

The grouts will remain at elevated temperatures for many

years. The high temperatures expected during the first few

decades after disposal will increase the driving force for

water vapor transport away from the grouts; the loss of water

may result in cracking . . .

A 1992 study on this issue regarding just pouring cement and sand on nuclear waste and somehow storing it and solidifying it in the ground said there would be a result of cracking.

What we know in Washington State is we already had the cracking of the tanks. We already had a plume of nuclear waste going toward the river. So we already know what this situation is all about.

In 2000, the National Academy of Sciences said:

[W]aste tank residue is likely to be highly radioactive and

not taken up in the grout, so there is substantial

uncertainty. . . .

Another 2000 study by the National Academy of Sciences says:

[Using grout,] the ability of the site to reliably meet

long-term safety performance objectives remains uncertain.

I think there is much science that basically says we do not think grout can work. Obviously, we do not know what the Department of Energy is trying to do, because they want to leave an unspecified amount of waste in the ground and not be specific about that. So it is very difficult for us to see.

I would also like in my short time here, because I know each Member is limited in time this evening, to refute the letter that was submitted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. While we do not know what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was asked to comment on, what they ended up commenting on was not the underlying language in the DOD authorizing bill. They did not comment on the fact that the Graham language would significantly change the Nuclear Waste Power Act and classify high-level waste as something else.

What they did comment on was the fact that you could take the entire tanks out of the ground and it would be very expensive, which I do not know if people can imagine, because the Hanford site is miles and miles of acres--I think earlier we said something close to one-third the size of the State of Rhode Island. That is how big the Hanford reservation is--580 miles of land. These tanks that have stored the spent fuel are enormous.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is saying: We do not know if it is feasible to take out the tanks entirely. Well, no one ever said we expected to take out the entire tanks. What we said was we think the tanks have to be cleaned and the site has to be cleaned. And that is the removal process we should continue to do.

So I think while we would be wise to get a letter from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that was specific about the exact proposal that is in this bill and get their response, the issue is they are not in charge of short-term waste disposal. They are in charge of this geological isolation solution we in Congress and others have been looking for, and basically asking questions about, and saying, Where are you going to take the vitrified waste and put it? They are not the regulatory entity over those short-term issues.

I think the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not fully addressed the question. I think perhaps we should send them a more direct question to which we can get a more specific answer.

We will hear a lot more about this issue when we return from the legislative recess. But I assure my colleagues, we are going to continue to talk about the fact that we in Congress cannot have this significant a change in a policy by simply sneaking language into a Senate Armed Services Committee bill that does not have jurisdiction over this issue and make a major policy change that is 30 years of law--30 years of established law--and 50 years of scientific evidence and override that in a short period of time without a full discussion and debate.

This underlying bill language needs to be stricken. We need to get about the nuclear waste cleanup that the science says we should do; that is, removing the high-level waste and not simply trying to do cleanup on the quick by calling it grout.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Thank you, Mr. President.

Let me start off by correcting a few things my colleagues have said on the floor. This is a debate about 1.5 million people who have lost their jobs and have not been able to find work and have been without benefits.

To be clear, the unemployment program at the Federal level does not exist today. It was terminated as of the 31st of December. This isn't a continuation of a program that has been in place for the last several months. It has not been in place.

As it relates to the Clinton administration and the economic numbers, say we cut the program off in better economic times and worse economic times, the whole point of this debate is the fact the economy and job creation has not taken place at the level that would have employed the number of people who have lost their jobs starting with over 2.6 million people. While we have had some job growth, we have not totally recovered. While the Clinton administration cut off the program at a time of higher unemployment, they actually had net job growth. That is why they terminated the program. We are not in that same situation.

In fact, it is no wonder Alan Greenspan basically, before a House committee, came to the same conclusion and said if you have a large number of exhaustees it makes sense to go ahead and use the program to take care of those exhaustees.

So here is one of our chief economists saying, Yes, the Clinton administration did something different, and they did it differently because they had job creation and net job growth going on. We do not have net job growth going on.

My colleague mentioned Alan Greenspan and the deficit and what we need to do to take care of the deficit moving forward. Alan Greenspan, who is also very concerned about the deficit, said exactly this. The number of exhaustees alone will tell you it is time for us to go ahead and take this program and take care of those 1.5 million exhaustees because of their large number.

Let us talk about where we are going to spend money. I think that is the reason we are in this debate. Some of my colleagues said it is about the deficit. Let us take this bill, for example. Let's take the underlying bill and talk about what we are spending money on. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of my amendment at $5.8 billion. If the Senator from Oklahoma can get a larger number----

I only have 5 minutes. I will be happy to yield after I finish speaking, if I have time.

The issue is this underlying bill has a lot of tax credits and programs to help corporate America. Many of them I support. But I think it is important for my colleagues to realize what is in this bill.

As opposed to the cost of taking care of the unemployment in America, there is $9 billion in here for the oil and gas industry; $2.2 billion for the clean coal industry; $2.8 billion for synthetic fuel. Actually, this particular program is under investigation by two different agencies. There are $2 billion for green bonds, which I say and Taxpayers for Common Sense say could still inadvertently go to a Hooters Restaurant. These two programs alone would pay for the unemployment benefit program.

We basically went ahead and authorized these in this legislation. I don't know where we found the money for those programs. Yet, we are taking money out of the unemployment insurance trust fund, a fund that is supposed to be paid into by employees, and somehow saying, out of the $13 billion that is there, we do not have enough money for working families who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, but, yes, we have money--$2.8 billion--for synthetic fuels, even though we are investigating whether the money should be spent there, and we have $2 billion for green bonds that could end up going to a Hooters Restaurant. Where are the priorities of my colleagues? Where are the priorities in passing this kind of legislation when we know that American men and women need our help and support?

Like my colleagues, I know this economy will get better. I have actually helped create jobs in the private sector. It will recover. But that is not the debate. The debate is, we have terminated a program in December and we now have data and information that shows the economy has not picked up to the degree in the last several months to take care of that huge number of unemployed who have exhausted their benefits. While everyone is talking about whether the economy is better, executive salaries are up, corporate profits are up, but total jobs lost is the issue. We are in a better economic situation, but we are leaving the American worker behind.

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. President, take last month's number. Say we had an average of 300,000 jobs created each month for the next 6 months. At the end of this program in October we would still be at a deficit. Even with 300,000 jobs created, we would still have over 112,000 people who had not gotten a job.

So the question is, What are we going to do for a stimulus in the meantime as we are going through this job creation exercise in America? Are we going to say these are the only programs we support, programs for the oil and gas industry, for synthetic fuels, for green bonds, for bourbon distributors, for horse racing, for archery manufacturers? Those are the things we will support and we will not support the American workers?

I ask my colleagues to think about our priorities and support the Cantwell-Voinovich amendment.

I am happy to respond to the issues raised.

One point is important to make. I am happy to modify my amendment if this would help clarify. This is not retroactive for someone who has gotten a job. If you got a job in March and you would have qualified for January and February unemployment, you do not get unemployment benefits. This only takes care of individuals who have lost their job and have not found a job.

I am happy to modify the amendment. That is not the intent of the amendment. The intent is only to take care of people who are still unemployed.

As I said, that is not the intent of the legislation. To make the Senator from Oklahoma comfortable, I am happy to consider whatever language he wants to clarify that point. This is not about someone who has gotten a job in the last 7 months; it is about the fact that we terminated this program in December and the fact that there are 1.5 million Americans who are without benefits. They are, basically, defaulting on mortgages, going into bankruptcy, not being able to take care of their own health insurance or the health care insurance of their family.

It is about giving them access to a fund that was created for these very economic times and giving them support during these economic times. It is stimulus that, as I said, is just as worthy as the other programs--I would say more worthy than a lot of the programs in the underlying bill.

I am happy to correct this perception by the Senator from Oklahoma and clarify it in any way so we can get this particular issue off the table.

Mr. President, this next amendment is the Cantwell- Voinovich amendment which will say when it comes to our economy and producing jobs, the priority of the Senate ought to be taking care of those individuals who lost their jobs and lost their benefits.

This amendment is crystal clear. It only applies to people who have lost their benefits and are unemployed as of the enactment of this legislation, which means it only covers people who have lost their jobs and are unemployed. It is about whether we are going to say 1.5 million Americans are more a priority than simply passing this legislation with all the tax credits, all the incentives for various corporations in America, but leaving American workers out in the cold.

Thirteen billion dollars of the unemployment insurance trust fund should be enough security to give back to workers who have paid into this account and through no fault of their own are unemployed. So while this institution today is going to make decisions----

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds.

So the question is whether we are going to continue to make a priority these kinds of tax credits in this legislation and leave the American workers out in the cold. I urge my colleagues, let us do both. Let us help those who have been left behind and continue to try to create a more positive economy.

I urge people to support the Cantwell-Voinovich amendment.

Mr. President, I move to waive the relevant section of the Budget Act and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Wildland Firefighter Safety Act of 2004, along with my colleague Senator Murray, the senior Senator from Washington State. Earlier today, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on which I serve held a hearing regarding the outlook for the 2004 fire season. I join many of my colleagues, who are very concerned about what appears to be yet another year of devastating drought throughout the West, and the

hazards this could pose in terms of increased fire risk and threats to public safety.

However, we in Washington State recognize the importance of an issue that is often overlooked in discussions of fire preparedness. This is the topic of wildland firefighter safety, and it's an issue that we care deeply about because a horrible tragedy occurred in our state in July 2001, when four young Washington firefighters lost their lives at the Thirtymile Fire. I come to the floor to introduce this legislation today, because we cannot forget the lives that were lost--and the families that are still grieving--as a result of the Thirtymile tragedy. What's more, we cannot allow the Forest Service and our Federal firefighting agencies to repeat the mistakes that the agencies themselves admit resulted in these avoidable deaths. Unfortunately, the recently-issued findings of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)--stemming from the Cramer Fire that killed two Idaho firefighters just last summer--indicate to me that the lessons of Thirtymile are not being completely heeded. This is simply unacceptable.

Many of my colleagues, particularly those from the West, are probably aware of the fact that every summer, we send thousands of our constituents--many of them brave young men and women, college students on summer break--into harm's way to protect our Nation's rural communities and public lands. These men and women serve our nation bravely. Since 1910, more than 900 wildland firefighters have lost their lives in the line of duty. According to the U.S. Forest Service, a total of 30 firefighters across this Nation perished in the line of duty just last year, during the 2003 fire season.

These firefighters represented a mix of Federal and State employees, volunteers and independent contractors. And they lost their lives for an array of reasons. We all realize that fighting fires on our nation's public lands is an inherently dangerous business. But what we cannot and must not abide are the preventable deaths--losing firefighters because rules were broken, policies ignored and no one was held accountable.

I have already mentioned the Thirtymile tragedy that pushed this issue to the fore in the State of Washington. On July 10, 2001, near Winthrop in Okanogan County, in the midst of the second worst drought in the history of our State, the Thirtymile fire burned out of control.

Four courageous young firefighters were killed. Their names: Tom Craven, 30 years old; Karen FitzPatrick, 18; Jessica Johnson, 19; and Devin Weaver, 21.

Sadly, as subsequent investigations revealed, these young men and women did not have to die. In the words of the Forest Service's own report on the Thirtymile fire, the tragedy ``could have been prevented.'' At that time, I said that I believe we in Congress and management within the firefighting agencies have a responsibility to ensure that no preventable tragedy like Thirtymile fire ever happened again.

I'd like to thank my colleague Senator Bingaman, the distinguished Ranking Member of the Senate Energy Committee, as well as Senator Wyden, who was then chair of the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests. In the wake of the Thirtymile Fire, they agreed to convene hearings on precisely what went wrong that tragic day. We heard from the grief-stricken families.

In particular, the powerful testimony of Ken Weaver--the father of one of the lost firefighters--put into focus precisely what's at stake when we send these men and women into harm's way.

I can think of no worse tragedy that a parent to confronting the loss of a child, especially when that loss could have been prevented by better practices on the part of federal agencies.

At that Senate Energy Committee hearing, we also discussed with experts and the Forest Service itself ways in which we could improve the agency's safety performance. And almost a year to the day after those young people lost their lives, we passed a bill--ensuring an independent review of tragic incidents such as Thirtymile that led to unnecessary fatalities.

Based on subsequent briefings by the Forest Service, revisions to the agency's training and safety protocols, and what I've heard when I have visited with firefighters over the past two years, I do believe the courage of the Thirtymile families to stand up and demand change has had a positive impact on the safety of the young men and women who are preparing to battle blazes as wildland firefighters.

Yet, I'm deeply saddened by the fact that it's clear we haven't done nearly enough.

In July 2003--two years after Thirtymile--two more firefighters perished, this time at the Cramer Fire within Idaho's Salmon-Challis National Forest. Jeff Allen and Shane Heath were killed when the fire burned over an area where they were attempting to construct a landing spot for firefighting helicopters. Certainly some 28 others lost their lives fighting wildfires last year, and we must recognize the sacrifice and grief befalling their families.

After the Thirtymile Fire, however, I told the Weavers and the Cravens, the families of Karen FitzPatrick and Jessica Johnson that I believed we owed it to their children to identify the causes and learn from the mistakes that were made in the Okanogan, to make wildland firefighting safer for those who would follow. That is why the findings associated with the Cramer Fire simply boggle my mind.

We learned at Thirtymile that all ten of the agencies' Standing Fire Orders and many of the 18 Watch Out Situations--the most basic safety rules--were violated or disregarded. The same thing happened at Cramer, where Heath and Allen lost their lives two years later.

After the Thirtymile Fire, OSHA conducted an investigation and levied against the Forest Service fire citations for Serious and Willful violations of safety rules. It was eerie, then, when just this March OSHA concluded its investigation of Cramer. The result: another five OSHA citations, for Serious, Willful and Repeat violations. Reading through the list of causal and contributing factors for Cramer and putting them next to those associated with the Thirtymile fire, my colleagues would be struck by the many disturbing similarities. Even more haunting are the parallels between these lists and the factors cited in the investigation of 1994's South Canyon Fire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado. It's been 10 years since those 14 firefighters lost their lives on Storm King Mountain--and yet, the same mistakes are being made over and over again.

Let me repeat: This is not acceptable. The firefighters we send into harm's way this year--and the ones we've already lost--deserve better.

Training, leadership and management problems have been cited in all of the incidents I've discussed. Frankly, I have believed since the Thirtymile tragedy that the Forest Service has on its hands a cultural problem. What can we do, from the legislative branch, to provide this agency with enough motivation to change? I believe the first step we can take is to equip ourselves with improved oversight tools, so these agencies know that Congress is paying attention. Today I'm introducing legislation--the Wildland Firefighter Safety Act of 2004--that would do just that.

I believe this is a modest yet important proposal. It was already passed once by the Senate, as an amendment to last year's Healthy Forests legislation. However, I was disappointed that it was not included in the conference version of the bill. But it is absolutely clear to me--particularly in light of OSHA's review of the Cramer Fire--that these provisions are needed now more than ever.

First, the Wildland Firefighter Safety Act of 2004 will require the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to track the funds the agencies expend for firefighter safety and training.

Today, these sums are lumped into the agencies' ``wildfire preparedness'' account. But as I have discussed with various officials in hearings before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, it is difficult for Congress to play its rightful oversight role-- ensuring that these programs are funded in times of wildfire emergency, and measuring the agencies' commitment to these programs over time-- without a separate break-down of these funds.

Second, this legislation will require the Secretaries to report to Congress annually on the implementation and effectiveness of its safety and training programs.

I assure my colleagues who have not spent time dwelling on this issue that the maze of policy statements, management directives and curricula changes associated with federal firefighter training is dizzying and complicated. The agencies have a responsibility to continually revise their policies in the face of new science and lessons learned on the fire line. Meanwhile, Congress has the responsibility to ensure needed reforms are implemented. As such, I believe that Congress and the agencies alike would benefit from an annual check-in on these programs. I would also hope that this would serve as a vehicle for an ongoing and healthy dialogue between the Senate and agencies on these issues.

Third, my bill would stipulate that Federal contracts with private firefighting crews require training consistent with the training of Federal wildland firefighters. It would also direct those agencies to monitor compliance with this requirement. This is important not just for the private contractor employees' themselves--but for the Federal, State and tribal employees who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them on the fire line.

This is actually quite a complex issue about which many of us are just beginning to learn. With the severity of fire seasons throughout the country over the past two years--and notwithstanding the Clinton Administration's efforts to hire a significant number of new firefighters as part of the National Fire Plan--the number of private contract crews hired by the agencies to help with fire suppression has tripled since 1998. According to Oregon Department of Forestry estimates, the number of contract crews at work has grown from 88 in 1998 to 300 this year--with 95 percent based in the Pacific Northwest.

In general, these contract crews have grown up in former timber communities and provide important jobs--especially given the fact the agencies themselves do not at this juncture have the resources to fight the fires entirely on their own. And many of these contractors have been in operation for a decade or more and boast stellar safety records.

Nevertheless, as the number of--and need for--contractors has grown, there are more and more tales of unscrupulous employers that take advantage of workers and skirt training and safety requirements. This is a growing concern for U.S. Forest Service employees and State officials. Last summer, the Seattle Times wrote a detailed feature on the issue, quoting internal Forest Service memos as well as evidence from the field.

I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.

Among the contractor practices cited in the Seattle Times article: breaking safety rules and failing to warn other crews on the fire line; falsifying or forging firefighting credentials and ignoring training requirements; hiring illegal immigrants that cannot understand fire line commands--and committing various labor abuses; and rotating a single crew from fire to fire for 50 straight days--while Federal firefighters are not allowed to work more than 14 or 21 days in a row.

The article quoted from a November 2002 memo written by Joseph Ferguson, a deputy incident commander for the Forest Service: ``If we don't improve the quality and accountability of this program, we are going to kill a bunch of firefighters . . . Although there were two or three good to excellent crews on each fire, that was offset by 20 to 30 that were hardly worth having,'' Ferguson added. ``It was apparent that training for most of these crews had been done poorly or not at all.''

Paul Broyles, who heads a safety committee for the National Interagency Fire Center added that private crews he has seen have varied from ``fantastic to a he[ck] of a lot less than good and some were real safety concerns.'' He noted that while State government and feds were trying to crack down on violations associated with documentation, ``the assumption is, where there's one problem, there's probably more.''

The Wildland Firefighter Safety Act of 2004 is a modest beginning in addressing the challenges posed by integrating private and Federal contract crews--and doing it in a manner that maximizes everyone's safety on the fire line.

I understand that the Federal and State agencies are already attempting to push contractors in this direction--and this provision will bolster that momentum.

And so, I hope my colleagues will support this simple legislation. Ultimately, the safety of our Federal firefighters is a critical component of how well prepared our agencies are to deal with the threat of catastrophic wildfire.

Congress owes it to the families of those brave firefighters we send into harm's way to provide oversight of these safety and training programs.

We owe it to our Federal wildland firefighters, their families and their State partners--and to future wildland firefighters.

The Wildland Firefighter Safety Act of 2004 will provide this body with the additional tools it needs to do the job. Thank you.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Wildland Firefighter Safety Act of 2004, along with my colleague Senator Murray, the senior Senator from Washington State. Earlier today, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on which I serve held a hearing regarding the outlook for the 2004 fire season. I join many of my colleagues, who are very concerned about what appears to be yet another year of devastating drought throughout the West, and the

hazards this could pose in terms of increased fire risk and threats to public safety.

However, we in Washington State recognize the importance of an issue that is often overlooked in discussions of fire preparedness. This is the topic of wildland firefighter safety, and it's an issue that we care deeply about because a horrible tragedy occurred in our state in July 2001, when four young Washington firefighters lost their lives at the Thirtymile Fire. I come to the floor to introduce this legislation today, because we cannot forget the lives that were lost--and the families that are still grieving--as a result of the Thirtymile tragedy. What's more, we cannot allow the Forest Service and our Federal firefighting agencies to repeat the mistakes that the agencies themselves admit resulted in these avoidable deaths. Unfortunately, the recently-issued findings of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)--stemming from the Cramer Fire that killed two Idaho firefighters just last summer--indicate to me that the lessons of Thirtymile are not being completely heeded. This is simply unacceptable.

Many of my colleagues, particularly those from the West, are probably aware of the fact that every summer, we send thousands of our constituents--many of them brave young men and women, college students on summer break--into harm's way to protect our Nation's rural communities and public lands. These men and women serve our nation bravely. Since 1910, more than 900 wildland firefighters have lost their lives in the line of duty. According to the U.S. Forest Service, a total of 30 firefighters across this Nation perished in the line of duty just last year, during the 2003 fire season.

These firefighters represented a mix of Federal and State employees, volunteers and independent contractors. And they lost their lives for an array of reasons. We all realize that fighting fires on our nation's public lands is an inherently dangerous business. But what we cannot and must not abide are the preventable deaths--losing firefighters because rules were broken, policies ignored and no one was held accountable.

I have already mentioned the Thirtymile tragedy that pushed this issue to the fore in the State of Washington. On July 10, 2001, near Winthrop in Okanogan County, in the midst of the second worst drought in the history of our State, the Thirtymile fire burned out of control.

Four courageous young firefighters were killed. Their names: Tom Craven, 30 years old; Karen FitzPatrick, 18; Jessica Johnson, 19; and Devin Weaver, 21.

Sadly, as subsequent investigations revealed, these young men and women did not have to die. In the words of the Forest Service's own report on the Thirtymile fire, the tragedy ``could have been prevented.'' At that time, I said that I believe we in Congress and management within the firefighting agencies have a responsibility to ensure that no preventable tragedy like Thirtymile fire ever happened again.

I'd like to thank my colleague Senator Bingaman, the distinguished Ranking Member of the Senate Energy Committee, as well as Senator Wyden, who was then chair of the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests. In the wake of the Thirtymile Fire, they agreed to convene hearings on precisely what went wrong that tragic day. We heard from the grief-stricken families.

In particular, the powerful testimony of Ken Weaver--the father of one of the lost firefighters--put into focus precisely what's at stake when we send these men and women into harm's way.

I can think of no worse tragedy that a parent to confronting the loss of a child, especially when that loss could have been prevented by better practices on the part of federal agencies.

At that Senate Energy Committee hearing, we also discussed with experts and the Forest Service itself ways in which we could improve the agency's safety performance. And almost a year to the day after those young people lost their lives, we passed a bill--ensuring an independent review of tragic incidents such as Thirtymile that led to unnecessary fatalities.

Based on subsequent briefings by the Forest Service, revisions to the agency's training and safety protocols, and what I've heard when I have visited with firefighters over the past two years, I do believe the courage of the Thirtymile families to stand up and demand change has had a positive impact on the safety of the young men and women who are preparing to battle blazes as wildland firefighters.

Yet, I'm deeply saddened by the fact that it's clear we haven't done nearly enough.

In July 2003--two years after Thirtymile--two more firefighters perished, this time at the Cramer Fire within Idaho's Salmon-Challis National Forest. Jeff Allen and Shane Heath were killed when the fire burned over an area where they were attempting to construct a landing spot for firefighting helicopters. Certainly some 28 others lost their lives fighting wildfires last year, and we must recognize the sacrifice and grief befalling their families.

After the Thirtymile Fire, however, I told the Weavers and the Cravens, the families of Karen FitzPatrick and Jessica Johnson that I believed we owed it to their children to identify the causes and learn from the mistakes that were made in the Okanogan, to make wildland firefighting safer for those who would follow. That is why the findings associated with the Cramer Fire simply boggle my mind.

We learned at Thirtymile that all ten of the agencies' Standing Fire Orders and many of the 18 Watch Out Situations--the most basic safety rules--were violated or disregarded. The same thing happened at Cramer, where Heath and Allen lost their lives two years later.

After the Thirtymile Fire, OSHA conducted an investigation and levied against the Forest Service fire citations for Serious and Willful violations of safety rules. It was eerie, then, when just this March OSHA concluded its investigation of Cramer. The result: another five OSHA citations, for Serious, Willful and Repeat violations. Reading through the list of causal and contributing factors for Cramer and putting them next to those associated with the Thirtymile fire, my colleagues would be struck by the many disturbing similarities. Even more haunting are the parallels between these lists and the factors cited in the investigation of 1994's South Canyon Fire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado. It's been 10 years since those 14 firefighters lost their lives on Storm King Mountain--and yet, the same mistakes are being made over and over again.

Let me repeat: This is not acceptable. The firefighters we send into harm's way this year--and the ones we've already lost--deserve better.

Training, leadership and management problems have been cited in all of the incidents I've discussed. Frankly, I have believed since the Thirtymile tragedy that the Forest Service has on its hands a cultural problem. What can we do, from the legislative branch, to provide this agency with enough motivation to change? I believe the first step we can take is to equip ourselves with improved oversight tools, so these agencies know that Congress is paying attention. Today I'm introducing legislation--the Wildland Firefighter Safety Act of 2004--that would do just that.

I believe this is a modest yet important proposal. It was already passed once by the Senate, as an amendment to last year's Healthy Forests legislation. However, I was disappointed that it was not included in the conference version of the bill. But it is absolutely clear to me--particularly in light of OSHA's review of the Cramer Fire--that these provisions are needed now more than ever.

First, the Wildland Firefighter Safety Act of 2004 will require the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to track the funds the agencies expend for firefighter safety and training.

Today, these sums are lumped into the agencies' ``wildfire preparedness'' account. But as I have discussed with various officials in hearings before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, it is difficult for Congress to play its rightful oversight role-- ensuring that these programs are funded in times of wildfire emergency, and measuring the agencies' commitment to these programs over time-- without a separate break-down of these funds.

Second, this legislation will require the Secretaries to report to Congress annually on the implementation and effectiveness of its safety and training programs.

I assure my colleagues who have not spent time dwelling on this issue that the maze of policy statements, management directives and curricula changes associated with federal firefighter training is dizzying and complicated. The agencies have a responsibility to continually revise their policies in the face of new science and lessons learned on the fire line. Meanwhile, Congress has the responsibility to ensure needed reforms are implemented. As such, I believe that Congress and the agencies alike would benefit from an annual check-in on these programs. I would also hope that this would serve as a vehicle for an ongoing and healthy dialogue between the Senate and agencies on these issues.

Third, my bill would stipulate that Federal contracts with private firefighting crews require training consistent with the training of Federal wildland firefighters. It would also direct those agencies to monitor compliance with this requirement. This is important not just for the private contractor employees' themselves--but for the Federal, State and tribal employees who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them on the fire line.

This is actually quite a complex issue about which many of us are just beginning to learn. With the severity of fire seasons throughout the country over the past two years--and notwithstanding the Clinton Administration's efforts to hire a significant number of new firefighters as part of the National Fire Plan--the number of private contract crews hired by the agencies to help with fire suppression has tripled since 1998. According to Oregon Department of Forestry estimates, the number of contract crews at work has grown from 88 in 1998 to 300 this year--with 95 percent based in the Pacific Northwest.

In general, these contract crews have grown up in former timber communities and provide important jobs--especially given the fact the agencies themselves do not at this juncture have the resources to fight the fires entirely on their own. And many of these contractors have been in operation for a decade or more and boast stellar safety records.

Nevertheless, as the number of--and need for--contractors has grown, there are more and more tales of unscrupulous employers that take advantage of workers and skirt training and safety requirements. This is a growing concern for U.S. Forest Service employees and State officials. Last summer, the Seattle Times wrote a detailed feature on the issue, quoting internal Forest Service memos as well as evidence from the field.

I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.

Among the contractor practices cited in the Seattle Times article: breaking safety rules and failing to warn other crews on the fire line; falsifying or forging firefighting credentials and ignoring training requirements; hiring illegal immigrants that cannot understand fire line commands--and committing various labor abuses; and rotating a single crew from fire to fire for 50 straight days--while Federal firefighters are not allowed to work more than 14 or 21 days in a row.

The article quoted from a November 2002 memo written by Joseph Ferguson, a deputy incident commander for the Forest Service: ``If we don't improve the quality and accountability of this program, we are going to kill a bunch of firefighters . . . Although there were two or three good to excellent crews on each fire, that was offset by 20 to 30 that were hardly worth having,'' Ferguson added. ``It was apparent that training for most of these crews had been done poorly or not at all.''

Paul Broyles, who heads a safety committee for the National Interagency Fire Center added that private crews he has seen have varied from ``fantastic to a he[ck] of a lot less than good and some were real safety concerns.'' He noted that while State government and feds were trying to crack down on violations associated with documentation, ``the assumption is, where there's one problem, there's probably more.''

The Wildland Firefighter Safety Act of 2004 is a modest beginning in addressing the challenges posed by integrating private and Federal contract crews--and doing it in a manner that maximizes everyone's safety on the fire line.

I understand that the Federal and State agencies are already attempting to push contractors in this direction--and this provision will bolster that momentum.

And so, I hope my colleagues will support this simple legislation. Ultimately, the safety of our Federal firefighters is a critical component of how well prepared our agencies are to deal with the threat of catastrophic wildfire.

Congress owes it to the families of those brave firefighters we send into harm's way to provide oversight of these safety and training programs.

We owe it to our Federal wildland firefighters, their families and their State partners--and to future wildland firefighters.

The Wildland Firefighter Safety Act of 2004 will provide this body with the additional tools it needs to do the job. Thank you.