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“ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Senate section on pages S5391-S5392 on May 20, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS
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U.S. ENRICHMENT CORPORATION
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, the press in Washington likes to highlight conflict and acrimony. In their quest to report the latest conflict between Congress and the President, Democrats and Republicans, or the House and the Senate, the media generally misses the story of Republicans and Democrats quietly sitting down together to work out very complex and difficult problems.
This is a shame, because it leads people outside Washington to think that all we do around here is posture and fight--and that's just not true.
Quite often, Congress and the Administration, the House and the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, labor and management, producers and consumers all sit down and work out difficult problems to everyone's mutual benefit. It often goes unnoticed. The press never writes a story. The public outside the beltway never hears about it. Such was the case with recent legislation to assist with the privatization of the U.S. Enrichment Corporation.
Mr. President, this nation has a uranium enrichment enterprise dating back to the end of World War II. Most of the uranium that has powered reactors in North America, Europe, and Japan was enriched at plants in the United States, by U.S. workers. This enterprise has suffered under the yoke of government control, and it has steadily lost market share to competitors around the world. As a result, the maintenance of a secure, economical domestic enrichment capability was at stake.
Certain members of the Senate recognized this problem early on. Senators Domenici, Ford and Johnston, in particular, worked to put the U.S. Enrichment Corporation, or USEC, on the path toward privatization years ago.
I must confess, Mr. President, when I first became familiar with this issue as Chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I was very concerned that a consensus might not be achievable.
We had conflicts between the desire to implement a Russian enriched uranium purchase agreement and the legitimate interests of enrichment plant workers and uranium producers. We had conflicts between plant workers and plant management. We had conflicts between USEC and other entities that desired to get into the enrichment business. We had tough issues to resolve that impacted every player in the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium producers, converters, enrichers, fuel fabricators, and utilities.
To complicate the picture, we had to address all these thorny issues in a manner that would maximize USEC's value without inhibiting competition in the enrichment market.
After hearings, a markup, and many months of work and negotiation between Senators, Senate staff, Members of the House, House staff, representatives of the Administration, uranium producers, labor unions, industry and many others, a bipartisan, bicameral bill slowly began to emerge. This was not always an easy negotiation, but those involved stuck with it to reach the best consensus achievable.
Like any successful negotiation, all sides had to give a little. Nobody was completely happy. But we got it done and achieved a broad consensus.
The USEC privatization bill was included in the reconciliation package which was vetoed for reasons having nothing to do with the USEC language. The USEC privatization bill was then presented as a stand-
alone bill that was placed on the Senate calendar, and the language emerging from our consensus was finally included in the Omnibus Appropriations bill that was recently signed by the President and enacted into law.
I am pleased that the adoption of this measure will result in the long term viability of a secure, economical, domestic source of uranium production and enrichment while providing revenues exceeding a billion dollars for the U.S. Treasury.
Mr. President, I want to publicly thank some of my colleagues who were so instrumental in making this bill a reality. Senators Domenici, Ford, Johnston, Thomas, and Campbell played key roles in the Committee's deliberations. Although they weren't on our Committee, Senators McConnell and DeWine worked behind the scenes, each bringing issues to my attention during difficult periods of the negotiation.
In particular, I want to mention and praise the efforts of Senator Domenici and Alex Flint of his staff. Senator Domenici and Alex were working this measure on a daily basis throughout its formulation, introduction, hearings, markup, the budget reconciliation process, and the omnibus appropriations process. Senators Ford and Johnston, ably served by Sam Fowler, the Minority Chief Counsel of the Energy Committee, were instrumental and absolutely indispensable in the eventual success of the measure.
At the Department of Energy, the personal and intense interest of Deputy Secretary Charles Curtis was a key to success. With Charlie's help we were able to break through some of the customary obstacles that arise in a protracted negotiation such as this.
The consideration of this bill also brought to light a former Energy Committee staff member, Mr. Russ Brown, who now works for USEC in a Governmental Affairs capacity. Russ worked for me on the old Water and Power Subcommittee when I was first a subcommittee chairman. Russ got to walk the halls of the Senate once again during the consideration of this bill. If there is a bad outcome arising from this bill's passage, it's the fact that Russ can't hand around his beloved Senate anymore and must return to work at USEC's offices in Bethesda.
Let me simply say that there are others I haven't specifically mentioned who deserve our thanks and recognition as well. They know who they are, and we are all indebted to their professionalism and perseverance.
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