Now, you're aware of how we currently measure the impact of low level radiation with the linear-no-threshold model.

Mr. MICHAELS. Yes, sir.

Senator DOMENICI. Would you share with much of the science community that it is time that that be seriously reviewed as to its true scientific and medical efficacy?

Mr. MICHAELS. I think it's very important that we examine current radiation standards in light of all new data that's developed. Senator DOMENICI. So I gather that as this study proceeds, with the initial 12 million being a starter and it'll take a few years, that you are willing to cooperate from your Department, from your position, with those who would be assigned the responsibility of evaluating the efficacy and adequacy of the current standard? Mr. MICHAELS. Sir, I would be eager to cooperate.

Senator DOMENICI. Congress and the Department have discussed the use of external regulators, like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, instead of the Department. Now, incidentally, I just posed a question to you a while ago about over-regulating and I may have that in mind in this question, I may not. It may not be what happens. But I just wonder, what are your views with regard to such external regulations?

Mr. MICHAELS. Senator, it's my understanding that the pilot regulation, the regulation pilots, are under way. One soon will be completed. Others are in the pipeline. And the Department has committed itself to taking on more complex pilot investigations, including at some pretty complex sites.

Before proceeding whole-hog into external regulation, I think we have to evaluate those pilots in light of costs, increased or decreased complexities that may arise because of the pilots, and whether or not we can expect demonstrable safety improvements. I understand that the initial pilots have raised some important questions and have shown the complexities of this regarding NRC decommissioning regulations, for example, issues around Price-Anderson Amendments Act indemnification. I think we have to look at these much more carefully before proceeding too fast.

Senator DOMENICI. Well, I just want for the record to state that at some point in the past we adopted a generic statute that permitted the States to apply their health standards to our national laboratories and Federal facilities. I don't remember the name of the law. But frankly, it has brought into play some very strange and strained relationships.

In my State, our Department of Environment regularly fines Los Alamos on matters that Los Alamos and Federal people who look at it say are absolutely situations where there is no safety risk involved and no health effects involved. Yet we're confronted with a State trying to get a fine, sometimes as much as a million and a half dollars, which comes out of the operating budget.

I wonder if you might-this is the first time I thought of this, but if you might from time to time upon request evaluate the propriety of that kind of a fine by whomever imposes it upon the laboratories.

Mr. MICHAELS. Senator, if that's within my jurisdiction I would be eager to do that. Obviously, I'm not prepared to promise some

thing that I may not be allowed to do by statute. But certainly I would work with you on that.

Senator DOMENICI. I seek no help for those who would not abide by reasonable safety and health requirements. I just know that we are sometimes a very soft cushion in terms of levying fines and sometimes it makes one wonder whether we did the right thing when we passed that Federal Facilities Regulatory Act, or whatever it was.

Thank you very much for your answers. Let me ask just one last question of both you and Ms. Gottemoeller. As you study and learn about the health effects of pollution in the air and the greenhouse gas situation, with its attendant recitation of what might be happening in terms of global warming, whether one believes all of the ramifications that people talk about or not, it is quite obvious that nuclear power is not contributing in any sense to that phenomenon and that dilemma; is that correct?

Ms. Gottemoeller, would you go first?

Ms. GOTTEMOELLER. Yes, certainly, Senator. As I stated earlier, I believe that nuclear energy will always be an important part of the overall energy menu, so to speak, of the United States. And I believe that, given the current concerns about global warming and environmental change, that we need to look at nuclear energy as an especially promising set of technologies that can be put to the service of those sets of problems.

Senator DOMENICI. I will ask the question a little differently of you. Would you conclude, based upon your scientific expertise in this area, that it would not be a fair evaluation of nuclear power and its role in pollution and global warming or lack thereof-to never mention nuclear power as a component of our efforts to control the pollutants that are causing global warming if it exists?

Mr. MICHAELS. Senator, I'm not sure exactly what is your question.

Senator DOMENICI. Well, if you saw a report that attempted to evaluate the contributors in the energy field and solutions in the field of energy use with reference to pollution in the outer atmosphere, would you think that no mention of nuclear power would be an appropriate treatment of what's going on?

Mr. MICHAELS. No, sir. I agree with Rose Gottemoeller that in fact we have a balanced energy portfolio in the United States. It's very important that we maintain that, and obviously in considering any one energy source we have to consider them all in comparing risks.

Senator DOMENICI. I thank you both, and I would just make an observation for the record, Mr. Chairman. The reason I asked the question is because the big meeting we held in Japan—what is it called, the Kyoto Accords?

The CHAIRMAN. The Kyoto Accords.

Senator DOMENICI. You can read it from cover to cover with reference to what the world ought to do about that and there is not one iota of comment with reference to the role of nuclear power. This has caused a number of great scientists in the United States to write to me and tell me that it's not an adequate report and that in many respects it must be rigged, they say, when you leave out nuclear power totally. I'd just like to make sure that these two pub

lic servants who are going to work with us at least know that some of us are concerned about that.

I thank you very much, and thank the witnesses.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Domenici. Obviously, that omission was not incidental, as we have observed over an extended period of time of having had positions taken by the administration on various issues, and nuclear is noticeably absent. Thank you very much.

Senator Craig.

STATEMENT OF HON. LARRY E. CRAIG, U.S. SENATOR
FROM IDAHO

Senator CRAIG. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

I certainly want to associate myself with the line of questioning that the Senator from New Mexico brought, and I am too pleased that the President is now recognizing the need for new initiatives in new nuclear generating concepts or techniques. I was highly angered that this administration had to express its anti-nuclear attitude by killing some excellent projects that were under way when they came to office, that we thought would bring new nuclear energy in a safe way and help get rid of our waste streams. But that wasn't the case.

I hope that the President continues to transition himself into a position of looking at some of these new technologies. It is critical for our country. But I'm not going to let him off easily because I think what he has done and what he has allowed his secretaries to do to date in this area has been foolhardy and foolish, and we've wasted 6 years now. But maybe we're going to get back on track, being they've cleansed our system of what appeared to be evil and bad and now we're going to have some new technologies and spend a lot of money. Maybe we can get back to the business of bringing our scientists back on board with the work that they were doing that in my opinion was excellent.

I am outspoken about that because we had one of those projects at my lab in Idaho, and for this administration to take the attitude that they had to drive a stake through that reactor to show the world that they were a nonproliferating administration was foolish. But that's history. Let's move on. I am actively supporting Chairman Domenici's effort to help fund this initiative. It is critical that this Nation wake up to the reality that it can be once again a leader in the field of research and technology in the development of new capacities or types of generation, of nuclear-generated energy. Anyway, I got that off my chest, but I think it's darned important that the record show that this President and his administration are not without sin in this area, and I'm pleased to see they're back on track.

Mr. MICHAELS., I'm going to submit to you a series of questions that I'd like some answers to prior to your confirmation, that deal with safety at the work sites around the country. I'm not pleased that you had to mention Idaho, but it was appropriate. Obviously, the loss of people there was disappointing and saddening. Those kinds of things should not go on, and I want to make sure that the record demonstrates that they're not going on elsewhere and that

hopefully that was an aberration and not a result of a continued string of mismanagement.

Anyway, for the record I think it is important that we have that and I would hope you would supply that to us.

I'm struggling with your name. How do you pronounce your name, Rose?

Ms. GOTTEMOELLER. "GOTT-a-MOE-ler," Senator.

Senator CRAIG. "GOTT-a-MOE-ler," thank you.

You mentioned an area that Secretary Richardson has been discussing in the creation of an international center for environmental safety at the INEEL and the relationship with the Russian minister that you spoke to in your opening remarks. We're excited about those opportunities. These centers are designed, of course, to deal with the environmental legacy of the Cold War, including Russian submarine spent nuclear fuel and weapons production facilities decontamination, decommissioning, all of those kinds of things. We support those and I think our facility in Idaho would be excited to become involved in that.

A couple of questions. How do you plan to fund these activities in fiscal year 1999?

Ms. GOTTEMOELLER. Sir, if I may just make a few remarks.
Senator CRAIG. Sure.

Ms. GOTTEMOELLER. We had some excellent discussions with Minister Adamov about the center while we were with him in Vienna, and the Russians too are very interested in proceeding forward. As you know, they have already been to Idaho for an initial conference to establish the marching order, so to speak, or the early agenda for the center, and I think we are off to a good start. We hope and expect within a very short time to actually sign a joint statement with them that would underscore our early goals for the center, and so I hope that we will have-the next time the minister and Secretary Richardson meet I hope we'll have that opportunity, and that is certainly our plan.

We have a small amount of funding which we used in fiscal year 1998 to begin the activity with the meeting that was held out in Idaho. We will continue in fiscal year 1999 to basically-I think we'll have some developmental work to do. We are lucky in that we've had the experience of the international nuclear safety centers, which your centers in Idaho have actually been very involved in and are now very experienced in. We hope to use the same model for the environmental safety centers.

So I think we will be able to actually develop the concept and establish the activities in quite an efficient way.

Senator CRAIG. Do you have any plans or do you know if there's a date or documents creating the center and when they might be signed?

Ms. GOTTEMOELLER. Sir, we are working with the Russians on that and we expect that this fall we will have documents actually signed establishing the center. Minister Adamov, as you know, is quite enthusiastic. Actually, he was one of the initial proponents of the international nuclear-environmental safety centers. But he indicated to us when we met with him that they were still basically working on the documents in Moscow.

But I see no barriers in the way.

Senator CRAIG. What's the connection between the environmental safety centers and the Nuclear Cities Initiative?

Ms. GOTTEMOELLER. That's a very good question, Senator. Actually, one of the major areas of activity in the Nuclear Cities Initiative will be on environmental cleanup technologies, remediation technologies. It turns out that many of the Russian entities in the nuclear cities, the research laboratories and other institutions, have been in the forefront of some very exciting technologies for environmental remediation, and we hope by cooperating with them to develop those technologies and the overall commercial potential of those technologies through the Nuclear Cities Initiative and in collaboration with the environmental safety centers, that we will be able first to help them in their own cleanup problems in Russiathey will be applying those technologies to their own problems-but also we hope to perhaps get those technologies out to a broader marketplace. And that in turn I believe would help in the conversion, the diversification, of those institutes away from weapons work and to the private sector.

Senator CRAIG. What is the function of the environmental safety centers in dealing with Russian submarine issues? How would those associate?

Ms. GOTTEMOELLER. At this point, sir, we are basically developing the agenda, as I said. I think in the context of the broad work that we expect the environmental safety centers to do in working with the Russians to develop their strategic plan for environmental remediation in these areas and so forth, I believe that they will have a role to play in that regard. But it has not been sharply defined as of this point.

Senator CRAIG. Thank you very much.

Mr. Bowron, you're kind of well, I don't think we've ignored you. But in light of the fact that you've not been asked any questions, let me ask you one.

Mr. BOWRON. Yes, sir.

Senator CRAIG. The Congress has addressed the question of patenting of mining claims under the general mining law. Indeed, the Congress established a moratorium on issuing patents for mining claims that were not, the term is, grandfathered in the moratorium language. There are, however, over 350 grandfathered claims that remain in limbo, mainly as a result of the Secretary of the Interior not taking action or, in my opinion, failing to fulfill his ministerial responsibilities under the law.

Are you going to make him abide by the law?

Mr. BOWRON. Senator, I am aware of this issue and your interest in it. I deliberately have had no contact with the Office of the Inspector General. That office may have done some work in this area. I don't know whether it has. It may have some work scheduled in this area. I'd like to know more about the issue than I know right now. I certainly am not well versed in this issue, and know not much more really than what you just said. I know that there are actions pending in the pipeline. I know that there's an agreement that these actions will be taken within a specified period of time, and I don't know much more than that.

And what I'd like to do is find out what has been looked at by the Office of the Inspector General, what may be planned, and