In 1987, this committee also-or, I should say the appropriations subcommittee which Senator Johnston Chairs, and I am the ranking member on that committee, we were able to cut off the funding for the production of nuclear weapons, plutonium, at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Washington.

I felt that was a very significant signal about the future of nuclear power, particularly in the weapons field. We are now in the process of trying to clean up that troubled facility, the worst mess we have in the whole field of nuclear waste, and I should hope that we would continue to recognize that in terms of the future of nuclear power.

I am proud to say that my State is now in the process of decommissioning our nuclear reactor at Trojan, and that is going to have a significant impact, I think, as well on the office that you represent here today in assisting in a local, regional cleanup proposition for the filthy, dirty waste that pollutes our area.

I might also say that with my former colleague, Senator Fowler of Georgia, I was very happy to work in offering various and sundry amendments that became a part of our Energy Act that we adopted last year, and I would like to put the focus on some of that renewable energy development, one of our great needs, and we adopted the Renewable Energy and Technology Development Act as a part of that.

The solar assistance financing entity was another one, the interest rate buy-down amendment was another. I feel that we have to get these renewables and the efficient and clean kind of energy that today is available. If we can, we have to pierce the barrier of energy production marketplace factors.

I also think that one of the most significant things done in the last Congress was a bipartisan effort to put a 1-year moratorium on underground testing of nuclear activity and weapons. I am very hopeful that we can see significant movement, now, by this new administration toward a comprehensive test ban treaty.

I was disturbed by the American Petroleum Institute's announcement just recently. They announced for the seventh year in a row that domestic oil production continues to decline, as the demand continues to increase.

Last year, that demand increased by the equivalent of 200,000 barrels of oil a day, and we now find that in that figure, in 1992, that imports accounted for approximately 46.2 percent of America's domestic oil consumption, up from 45.6 percent in 1991, the year this Nation went to war in order to try to protect its oil supplies in the Middle East.

I think, in other words, Ms. O'Leary, we are poised on the brink of a very, very significant shift and change in our energy picture if we are but wise enough to take that leadership through partnership and consensus and cooperation and develop energy independence and energy stability and security for this Nation.

Two very brief issues that relate to regional concerns of mine; one, the Bonneville Power Administration, which is the Nation's premier power marketing agency. In relation to that, we have a Gordian Knot issue surrounding the administration of Endangered Species Act.

Like it or not, the Department of Energy is now a primary player in the salmon recovery program of the Columbia River Basin, and that will continue to be on the front burner of your administration.

I indicated the other regional one earlier, and that is in the assisting of the decommissioning of the Trojan nuclear plant, but our plate is full, and I want to pledge to you, Ms. O'Leary, my fullest cooperation. I am deeply impressed by your credentials and by your outstanding record, and look forward to working with you.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Bingaman.

STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF BINGAMAN, U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO

Senator BINGAMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also welcome Secretary-designate O'Leary here. I think it is a wonderful choice the new President has made.

I will say very briefly that the President-elect has committed himself to a program of economic revitalization for the country. I believe very strongly that the Department of Energy can be a major participant in that, and a major contributor to that economic revitalization, and that to do so I think it is essential that the Department see its mission as that of a technology agency, and I know that that is a central concern of Secretary O'Leary, and I very much look forward to working with you on that very important set of priorities.

I do think, of course, that our national laboratories that the Department of Energy oversees has a tremendous role to play in that revitalization of our economy, and I have had an opportunity to discuss that with the Secretary-designate, and believe that that will be an important goal of hers in the new administration as well, and so I will defer to my other colleagues so that we can get on with the testimony. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Domenici.

STATEMENT OF HON. PETE V. DOMENICI, U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO

Senator DOMENICI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, will try very hard to be brief.

Let me just state that I concur with everyone here who has said to President-elect Clinton that this is a very excellent appointment. Clearly, you could not pick anyone for this job that was an expert in all of the fields that the Department of Energy has to operate. It is kind of an unknown Department from the standpoint of many, because in addition to being an Energy Department, I do not think there is any question, objectively, that it is the lead science and technology department of the Federal Government in fact.

Ms. O'Leary, you have 23,000 physicists, scientists, and engineers directly employed by the Department of Energy, and what backs them up makes it about 38,000, and then with contract people you have scientists in excess of 150,000, and it is mature, experienced, Nobel winning scientists.

As we move from a very heavily burdened defense budget to one that is more in tune with the future, this Department and science

and technology-is at risk, because it predominantly-through our laboratories has been used for nuclear defense activities, at least for the three major laboratories, each of which has about 9,000 scientists, physicists, and engineers.

I have had the opportunity to discuss with you in some detail, and you have answered in writing questions that I have submitted, indicating that you take this part of your job very seriously and that you understand that you need to make a role for this largest of all science and technology departments in the world. Twenty Nobel winners are within these laboratory systems. That is more than any institution can claim.

You have pledged, as I understand it, that you are going to push this DOE laboratory system as one of America's finest technology transfer capabilities in your role as Secretary, and I look forward to working with you in that area and in many others.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Domenici.

Senator Shelby.

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD C. SHELBY, U.S. SENATOR FROM ALABAMA

Senator SHELBY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that the President-elect, as a lot of you have already said, was very wise in choosing this nominee. She brings to this job tremendous experience, both in the Department of Energy, where she worked and labored for many years and I can recall that from the House side, my House days-and also in private industry.

But there are a lot of problems out here that you are not going to be able to solve in just a few days or a few months, and they are all important, but one that Senator Hatfield mentioned a minute ago is the importation of oil-our continued dependence on foreign oil, and I do not see any end to it, with our tough drilling problems in this country, in ANWR offshore and everything. It seems like it is a big contradiction. We are burning the oil day by day. Our resources in America are being depleted day by day. That is something you are going to have to be confronted with. It is not a new issue, but it is an issue that is going to become, Ms. O'Leary, more and more acute. You know it, and I am sure you will be dealing with it and trying to solve some common sense approach to all of it.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with her, and I plan to support her and work with her, as you do. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Shelby.

Senator Nickles.

STATEMENT OF HON. DON NICKLES, U.S. SENATOR FROM

OKLAHOMA

Senator NICKLES. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I welcome Ms. O'Leary to the committee and I look forward to working with her.

Ms. O'Leary, I would just like to say that you have some enormous challenges before you. A couple of my colleagues have al

ready mentioned the dependence and growing dependence we have on imported oil. I share that concern.

I also share a concern about this industry that has lost hundreds of thousands of jobs and our country is paying an enormous price for that imported oil. In 1992, two-thirds of our negative balance of trade was for oil.

So we are shipping a lot of dollars overseas and we are losing jobs domestically. Some of us would like to reverse that. It bothers me, coming from an oil State, when I hear some producers saying that it is more of a positive environment to drill or explore, not just in places off Scotland, but in places even such as the Soviet Union and other places, that the environment, due to governmental regulations and taxes is so hostile in the United States that it just really does not pay to invest here. That costs jobs.

So we need to change that. We need to reverse that. We need to slow the rise of dependence on imports. In your Cabinet position, you can be an advocate to change that. I hope that you will be.

I am concerned about the fact that we have lost these hundreds of thousands of jobs. I am concerned about the fact that we do not have very many drilling rigs running today. I am concerned about the tax policy. Even though we made some changes in the bill last year on alternative minimum tax, we still place a punitive tax surcharge on majors for drilling in the United States, a tax surcharge on a drilling expense. That does not make any sense whatsoever. And again it cost jobs.

I am concerned when I hear some of the talk coming from various people within the Clinton administration talking about energy taxes; that this solution to solving some of our fiscal problems might be a big gasoline tax or a carbon tax or Btu tax; all of which will cost consumers. A lot of people are acting like that is not a tax. So I would like to have your opinion on that. And I will talk to you about that in the future.

So we have some very serious challenges, both from the taxation side and I also say from the regulatory and environmental side. We need some balance, we need some common sense. I hope that you will be that advocate in the Clinton administration.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Nickles.
Senator Wellstone.

STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL WELLSTONE, U.S. SENATOR FROM

MINNESOTA

Senator WELLSTONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I get to do double duty today. It will shortly be my honor to introduce Hazel O'Leary to my committee.

But I want to take this opportunity for an open statement. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I wanted to find out whether or not the Prairie Island Indian Tribal Council's testimony has been received by the committee and is a part of the formal record?

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it will be.

Senator WELLSTONE. Thank you.

And Mr. Chairman, I would also like to have my full statement be included as a part of the record.

The CHAIRMAN. It will be.

Senator WELLSTONE. I appreciate that.

Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, Hazel O'Leary and I have had a number of different meetings and I have been very appreciative of her response to written questions. They have been substantive responses. They have been detailed. And we may pursue some of those questions today in a little further detail.

But I have to say that I have been most impressed with her response and I share the sentiment of other members on the committee about the kind of Secretary of Energy she will be.

Mr. Chairman, I met with Ms. O'Leary last week to discuss the challenges that are going to be before her as Secretary of Energy and they are significant. She takes over a department which is largely misnamed, since only a small part of its program and budget is directed to national energy policy.

Like her predecessor, she will be faced with daunting and difficult problems, primarily associated with the weapon side of the department. Do we still need a multi-billion dollar weapons development program in the post-Cold War period? When and at what cost will clean up of the nation's nuclear-related sites take place? How will we store commercial and defense-related radioactive waste? These are incredibly difficult questions that Hazel O'Leary will have to grapple with and all of us will have to grapple with in our country.

These are vital problems which can absorb all the time and energy of the Secretary of Energy, no pun intended. These are the problems which I understand came to dominate the personal agenda of Secretary Watkins and who can blame him; to the point where I think national energy strategy was delegated to others.

In addition, Mr. Chairman, the Congress just passed-as you well know, given your important leadership-a new Energy Policy Act, implementing its 30 titles and 302 sections will be a taunting task, to say the least.

But I believe, Mr. Chairman, that there is one task-and I think Senator Hatfield alluded to this-which is even more important than any of these. We still need to devise a long-range national energy policy to address directly and aggressively the role of government in helping to shape and manage a transition to a sustainable energy future.

We spent the past 12 years without a clear long-term direction for national energy efforts and that must change. As Secretary of Energy, Ms. O'Leary, you will have the principle responsibility for setting that direction. Some might think that because the 102th Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 1992, we have filled this gap in the past decade. But I think the title of this act is a little bit too comforting, and in fact, it may be a little bit misleading.

The truth is, the United States does not have secure energy supplies, we continue to depend on unreliable sources of oil in the Middle East and this dependence will not decrease under the provisions of this law. In fact, oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions will continue to increase over current levels.

So although this law has many good provisions, we must remember that it is a very modest first step toward the energy security that is needed.