GRUMBLY, ALM, COBURN, AND BURTON

NOMINATIONS

TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1996

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Frank H. Murkowski, Chairman, presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK H. MURKOWSKI,

U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. We will call the committee to order.

Today the committee will hear testimony from the President's nominees as follows: Thomas P. Grumbly to be the Under Secretary of the Department of Energy; Alvin L. Alm to be Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management at the Department of Energy; Charles William Burton to be a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Enrichment Corporation.

Each nominee has submitted all the information required by the committee-and we have one more: Christopher Coburn to be a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Enrichment Corporation.

I understand that each nominee has submitted all the information required by the committee; is that correct? And in an effort to move this hearing along, I do not intend to make any further opening statements other than to welcome each nominee to the committee.

I believe that we have the Coburn family. Would you like to introduce Mrs. Coburn?

Mr. COBURN. This is my wife Nancy, my daughter Caroline, my son Sean.

The CHAIRMAN. Good. You have got your tickets to eternity here this morning, is that right?

And Mr. Grumbly?

Mr. GRUMBLY. Yes, Senator, I have my wife Judy and my Peg and Ed Pusay.

The CHAIRMAN. Good. You have got the whole family.

Senator Johnston.

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STATEMENT OF HON. J. BENNETT JOHNSTON, U.S. SENATOR FROM LOUISIANA

Senator JOHNSTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have two new DOE nominees here. I say new nominees. Tom Grumbly is not new to the Department, nor is Al Alm. But we are extremely fortunate to have both of these nominees. Why anyone would want to go into that sticky wicket of one of the most difficult, impossible areas of all the Federal Government, I do not know. But we are very fortunate that we have them both.

Tom, of course, has done just an outstanding job and is now being given a promotion. He has done an outstanding job even though the law that he has had to administer made him do impossible things, with impossible time lines, with nonexistent technology, and with the threat of putting him in jail if he did not get it done. But maybe he is getting out at this time so that he will not go to jail and let Al go for him.

Of course, Al Alm was one of Schlesinger's top people back when we created the Department, and we worked with him back in the 1970's. And I must say he was one of the brightest stars back at that time, and I am sure he will be at this time. I just cannot say enough about how lucky we are with both of those.

And by the way, I have a written statement that goes into some other issues, which I hope you will read. I would like to put in the statement at this time.

The CHAIRMAN. It will be entered into the record.

[The prepared statement of Senator Johnston follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. J. BENNETT JOHNSTON, U.S. SENATOR FROM LOUISIANA

I strongly support all four nominees before the Committee this morning. Tom Grumbly has performed admirably in an impossible job. The laws governing the cleanup of DOE facilities required him to meet unattainable standards, to use nonexistent technologies, to meet impossible deadlines, to employ unnecessary workers, and to do it all without adequate funds. To top it off, we threatened to put him in jail if he failed.

Tom did not fail; he made the most of a terrible situation. He did not finish the job; no one could have. It will take decades and hundreds of billions of dollars to complete. But he has dealt with the most pressing problems and he has brought what was a run-away program under some measure of control.

I am particularly pleased with the efforts to reduce costs which have occurred in the cleanup program under Tom's direction. Perhaps most impressive is the reduction in the proposed schedule for cleaning up Fernald from 25 years to 10 years, at an estimated savings of $2.4 billion. Central to the approval of that compressed schedule was acceptance by the local community of a plan to dispose of certain very low-level wastes in a disposal cell at the site. This eliminated the need to find an alternative disposal site for these wastes, which eliminated the need for costly transportation and disposal fees. Among other things, this speaks well of the public outreach program the Department has in place at Fernald.

Yet the option of on-site disposal does not exist at every site or for every waste stream. Some sites are not ideally suited for waste disposal. Many communities are opposed to long-term storage or disposal of wastes at their sites. For both of these reasons, we need to move significant quantities of waste off site.

This is why progress at Yucca Mountain is so important. Many of the wastes streams from the weapons complex are high-level wastes that can only go to the kind of disposal facility we envision at Yucca Mountain. I am hopeful that we will legislate on that subject in the near future.

Other waste streams, such as mixed and low-level waste, present a different challenge. With regards to their storage and disposal, I am particularly pleased with the Department's willingness to consider private sites. These sites necessarily have the public support that is so often lacking at government owned sites. And, because they