My last question is simply to say you are working, I hope, extremely hard to contain those areas and are particularly sensitive in your cleanup with respect to the surrounding populations.

Mr. BRUSH. Yes, we are, and very sensitive, for example, to the particular values that the surrounding populations may have on how that cleanup would go, and those are variable depending upon whether you maybe have a significant amount of African Americans in the region or Hispanics or Native Americans, and we're trying to factor their specific concerns into it.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me thank the Ranking Member and the Chairman, and if I have any time I'll yield it back.

Thank you very much.

Chairman ROHRABACHER. Well thank you, and we will now turn to Mr. Roemer for his period to question.

Mr. ROEMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Brush, I would like to get into what I remarked briefly on in my opening comments, and that was my bill H.R. 1510 to require that DOE facilities move more quickly toward external regulation.

As you know, I feel and many other Members of Congress feel that there are layers of bureaucracy now that are duplicative and we think wasteful that would save the taxpayers a lot of money if we move toward external regulation.

I understand that back in January, the Advisory Committee on External Regulation recommended to the Department that you move toward external regulation of your facilities. Can you summarize what the Department is doing to respond to this recommendation, and also could you quantify the cost savings as well, too.

Mr. BRUSH. Let me summarize by going back even further than January. As many members of the Committee know, the Department of Energy is self-regulating in a number of areas-it's important to remember that not all areas. The Department is externally regulated in its environmental activities as we've been discussing this morning; but in particular areas of nuclear safety and the like, the Department is self-regulating.

This problem was directly addressed by the Secretary early in her tenure, first with respect to the fact that we are self-regulating with respect to occupational safety and health, that is many of the Department's activities, nuclear activities are not subject to regulation by the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and then moving beyond that to the issue of external regulation of nuclear safety. The Department is not currently regulated for most of its activities by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

In response to that, the Secretary established the Advisory Committee on External Regulation of DOE Nuclear Safety headed by Mr. John Ahearn, and that report was released in December. It recommended that the Department should be externally regulated for most of its nuclear activities. There were some minor areas excluded, but the vast majority would be affected by this recommendation.

The recommendation was in general accepted by the Secretary, and in response she has put in place an internal process headed by Acting Under Secretary Tom Grumbly whose charge is to come

forward by the end of July with an implementation plan to carry out those recommendations.

The basic areas that are being investigated of course include some of the areas that are most interesting perhaps from the general public's standpoint, which would be the question of which existing Federal agency should be given that job or should a new agency be created.

I would like to underscore as part of my answer that some of the problems that we have to address, although perhaps not as interesting publicly, are vital to ensuring safety of Departmental operations.

Two that I would single out would be, first, that under any system of external regulation there needs to be a strong, internal corporate function that provides to the Department's leadership some ability to monitor and oversee how safety of DOE operations are ongoing. As a CEO of a large corporation, you don't want to wait until the regulator comes and cites you for a violation before you are able to take steps to fix the problems. So the need for a strong internal function has been recognized by the Advisory Committee and is essential.

The second point I would like to make is that whenever you are transitioning to a new system of regulation, such as we're talking about here, that transition itself brings to the fore potentially serious safety problems that must be addressed. When we know that if we're going to transition to a new system we have to keep in place a very aggressive and very attentive program to ensure that the safety initiatives we have underway are not lost in the process of transitioning to a new system.

As to your question on cost, I cannot give you that number now. That number has been requested as part of the study that Acting Under Secretary Grumbly has committed to complete by the end of July, and we will of course provide that to you as soon as we have it.

Mr. ROEMER. I would appreciate that. What kind of time frame would that be on, Mr. Brush?

Mr. BRUSH. The Secretary has commissioned this study by the end of July.

Mr. ROEMER. Now usually when we hear about this you couple the defense and the civilian side of whether or not we can move toward external regulations. If we decoupled these efforts could we move more expeditiously on the civilian side and save more money?

Mr. BRUSH. That's a good question and it's one that the Under Secretary's group is looking at. I would only caution that so many of DOE's activities are multi-purpose in nature that it would be much like the Chairman's question about how we break our budgets down into defense and non-defense. It's going to be very difficult to determine how exactly to draw the line.

Mr. ROEMER. I would just caution you back, too, in terms of your answer to the external regulations, that we don't try to, with your caveats on internal regulations that need to be set up to give warning on upcoming problems and in-transition costs, that we don't whittle away all the savings with those two components taking up too much of where we're trying to move in terms of new ideas and

I thank the Chairman.

Chairman ROHRABACHER. Mr. Doyle.

Mr. DOYLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Colglazier, just one question. In your testimony you've recommended that the Department enhance the long-term research on environmental management problems, and it's my understanding that DOE now has an effort underway to provide approximately $50 million for such research. They've earmarked $20 million for university research, $20 million for DOE laboratory research and $10 million for integrative research.

You've also said in your testimony that you don't believe DOE should earmark such research monies for specific types of research performers. Do you agree with the manner in which DOE has set up this program and are you satisfied with its plans to complete proposals?

Dr. COLGLAZIER. First of all, we applaud very much the fact the Department is creating this basic research program for the environmental cleanup effort. We think it is needed.

The Department has also asked the Academy to set up a committee to review how they're implementing it this year and to make recommendations for future years. That committee actually will have its first meeting in two weeks. So we will have our first report later in June and subsequent reports later this fall. So we will certainly be reporting back to you on our view, but overall we're certainly glad the initiative has been started.

Mr. DOYLE. Thank you.

Admiral, maybe you could answer this question. Where else in DOE is environmental research and development taking place, and how can we best use those assets in a coordinated fashion to meet the overall mission?

Admiral GUIMOND. There is some environmental research that occurs throughout the Energy Research Program, which is a large multi-billion dollar research effort that occurs in many of the national laboratories throughout America; and in addition to that, those national laboratories in many cases may conduct some environmental-related research that is funded, not by the Department of Energy, but in fact may be funded by the Department of Defense or the National Institutes of Health or other groups that have a bearing here. Some related stuff is done by, for example, the Office of Fossil Fuels, who are focused on fossil energy type of stuff, will conduct some activities in the environmental arena, too. Those are a few examples.

Mr. DOYLE. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.

Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Doyle.

I have one more question for Mr. Brush. You mentioned the Japanese and this Radiation Effects Research Foundation that has been examining the health of families from atomic bomb survivors. How much money is being put into that?

Mr. BRUSH. Currently we are spending approximately $20 million a year. As I indicated, this is a joint program between the United States and the government of Japan. We are working very hard with the government of Japan to reduce those costs.

Last year as part of our budget process the Congress directed us to find ways to save money in that program. We have reduced our budget request down to $15 million for 1997.

Chairman ROHRABACHER. From 20?

Mr. BRUSH. From 20, a 25 percent savings.

Chairman ROHRABACHER. And when do you expect that this program will be no longer in existence?

Mr. BRUSH. Let me answer that in two ways. First of all, the program that is going on now is vitally important. The research that is now underway focusing on survivors of the atomic bombings is convinced, and we agree, that the data that will be obtained by looking at the exposed populations as they enter their later years will be very important in terms of the science of radiation protection. So there is still very important science to go on there. Chairman ROHRABACHER. Radiation protection?

Mr. BRUSH. Yes, sir, in terms of setting standards, international and national standards for radiation protection. All of the standards that exist today for protection of the public from radiation, whether it's hospitals, nuclear plants or the like, that data essentially stems from the studies that have been conducted in this Japanese work.

But your question is a very good one because obviously this work should not go on forever. We commissioned with the government of Japan last year a distinguished Blue Ribbon Panel to look at this very question, and we expect to have their report within a month or so as to their recommendations on the future of this program, and we'll be happy to share it with you.

Chairman ROHRABACHER. I thought you were going to say when the very last survivor dies we'll close up the shop.

Mr. BRUSH. Well that is of course one approach, but we are also interested in the additional generations and the subsequent generations as well.

Chairman ROHRABACHER. You know Ronald Reagan used to say that a government program is the next best thing to eternal life on this planet.

[Laughter.]

And sometimes, you know, there's always going to be some benefit there. Frankly, I do believe that studying the effects of radiation, this massive radiation that these people experienced, was certainly a benefit and the amount of information we received from it was a benefit to all of us because it was a whole new phenomena for mankind when this study began. But after 50 years I think this is something we've got to look at and figure out just how much this information will be put to use.

Perhaps just knowing, if there is a nuclear war or something or a nuclear accident, what the long-term effects are after 50 years on people would be of some benefit, but I'm not sure we have to go at this with the same level that we've been doing.

it.

Mr. BRUSH. As I said, this is why we're cutting the budget for

Chairman ROHRABACHER. Yes, sir, I noted that.

Admiral GUIMOND. Mr. Chairman, if I might just comment on that from the standpoint of a program that operates facilities out

As Mr. Brush indicated, over the years we've learned a tremendous amount about the effects of it in causing cancer and various other kinds of things from watching these people as well as whether there are effects on their children from the standpoint of birth defects or those kinds of things, and that I think has provided a very, very excellent information to ensure that future workers at sites, such as our sites or nuclear power plants or hospitals, do not have similar kinds of radiation problems.

Chairman ROHRABACHER. But of course the people that work around nuclear material wouldn't be having the same type of effects that someone who went through a nuclear blast would be having.

Admiral GUIMOND. That's true, but they're still exposed to radiation. So you have a varying degree of radiation exposure that some of these people had. So by looking at that we get an idea about at what levels is there really a risk and what at what levels isn't there a risk.

Chairman ROHRABACHER. All right. Well thank you very much, Admiral, and thank you all. I appreciate it.

This panel is dismissed, and would the second panel move forward.

[Panel 2 on Nuclear Energy comes forward.]

This appears to be a vote, and what I'm going to do, without objection, is suggest that we come back here at 12:15 which gives us time to grab a sandwich, and then we will hear from the panel starting at 12:15. Thank you very much.

This Committee is in recess until 12:15.

[The Committee recessed to vote at 11:45 a.m., to reconvene at 12:15 p.m.]

AFTERNOON SESSION

Chairman ROHRABACHER. The hearing will come to order.
Our second panel will cover the Office of Nuclear Energy.

Dr. Terry Lash is Director of that Office and is with us today, as is Tom Schatz, President for Citizens Against Government Waste. I should pronounce his name correctly after all the times that we have spoken together and had him here to testify. Phillip Bayne is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, and Matt Freedman is the Energy Policy Analyst for Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project.

With that, I want to suggest that you basically keep your testimony down to about five minutes, and then you are certainly welcome to submit much longer testimony for the record. So if we could proceed with that understanding. Thank you very much. Dr. Lash.

STATEMENT OF DR. TERRY R. LASH, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, WASHINGTON, DC

Dr. LASH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would be happy to submit my full testimony for the record, and I'll make a short oral statement.

The Administration's fiscal year 1997 budget request for the Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology is about $348 mil