However, the intensity of opposition to this measure by the administration and apparently by the industry suggests that Government and industry are not prepared to play a vigorous leadership role for achieving adherence among all suppliers to full-scope safeguards as a minimum condition of nuclear supply. This lack of U.S. leadership is the heart of the proliferation dilemma. Unless Congress strengthens nonproliferation law and then performs the oversight necessary to insure that the law is enforced, not bypassed, we are likely to witness a continuation of nuclearbusiness-as-usual that would put us on a path to a plutonium-asusual world. By the year 2000, which is less than two decades away, such a world will have to manage safely and securely some 600 tons of separated plutonium introduced into commerce by that time, according to the industry's own current worldwide plans and projections. That would be enough plutonium for 88,000 atomic bombs. We believe that reactor-grade plutonium, as it is called, is suitable for use in weapons. I don't think anyone sitting at this table would care to stay in Washington if there was a terrorist nuclear blackmail threat and the material used in the device was confirmed to be reactor-grade plutonium. NUCLEAR THREAT I think we would take such a threat very seriously. Although plutonium from power reactors is not the preferred weapons material, it is a suitable material-this we have been advised by members of our Board, one of them a former weapons designer and another a retired admiral who has specialized in proliferation questions. I would like to submit, if I may, for the record a summary of a report that the Nuclear Control Institute issued, entitled "World Inventories of Civilian Plutonium and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons." It deals with this question, the accumulating civilian inventories of plutonium and the potential proliferation consequences. Mr. BONKER. Is that the report? Mr. LEVENTHAL. Yes; it is. It is a two-page summary. Mr. BONKER. Hearing no objection, the report will be inserted in the official record.1 Mr. LEVENTHAL. Thank you very much. It would not seem unreasonable to require full-scope safeguards now as the minimum condition of U.S. nuclear export policy and nonproliferation diplomacy. It also would seem reasonable that as a corollary objective the United States aggressively pursue the elimination of separated plutonium and the other nuclear explosive material, highly enriched uranium, from civilian programs at home and abroad. If full-scope safeguards are to have any significance beyond the rhetorical and the cosmetic, nuclear power and research programs must be redirected to utilize and produce only nonexplosive nuclear materials that can be safeguarded effectively. 1 See app. 8. The potential for effective safeguards on nonexplosive materials is there, but it would appear in realistic terms that an effective safeguard system cannot be devised, either politically or technologically, to deal with many, many tons of nuclear explosive materials being transported and handled in commerce throughout the world. Achievement of full-scope safeguards without an eventual ban on nuclear explosive materials is not likely to buy that much in the way of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons in the long run. Both objectives must be pursued and achieved in tandem if the global spread of nuclear weapons is to be prevented, not simply managed. DISCOUNTED ENRICHMENT SERVICES As to the second topic, the viability of providing low enriched uranium inexpensively in those countries agreeing to forgo reprocessing, as is addressed in H.R. 3058, we feel that this approach should prove viable if the U.S. Government is prepared to pursue the offer vigorously in conjunction with the other positive incentives provided in the bill for discouraging plutonium use. The offer of discounted enrichment services should prove viable because it builds upon information and practical experience not available to policymakers in the late 1970's when the Carter administration set aside a stockpile of low enriched uranium and tried unsuccessfully to offer nations assured fuel in return for nonproliferation commitments. Among the changed circumstances that we are aware of is that there is now a glut, not a shortage, of natural uranium. We now know how extensive is the overcapacity of uranium enrichment services worldwide. We now know how costly and how difficult commercial reprocessing has proven to be. We have come to understand how uneconomical commercial breeder reactors are. Therefore, some nations previously unwilling to forgo plutonium in return for cheap, assured, low-enriched uranium fuel may be willing to do so today in view of the changing circumstances. I also want to add that as part of any assured fuel supply arrangement, there would have to be an offer to take spent fuel. That, perhaps, will be the most difficult and most nettlesome thing to achieve because nations are not anxious to open their doors to accept spent fuel from other countries. That has to be worked at. We cannot afford just to let the plutonium accumulate in anticipation that someday we will figure a way out of the dilemma. It really needs to be done now. The two bills before the committee, particularly because of the positive assurances provided in the Nuclear Explosives Control Act, we feel provide a good legislative framework for achieving these objectives. Topic three is the administration's current proposal to provide advance consent for reprocessing and plutonium use for specified countries. We are aware of talks going on with Japan to try to negotiate such a long-term programmatic approval, and we view this as an unwarranted and dangerous departure from U.S. nonproliferation policy, as embodied in the cautious case-by-case approach spelled out in the Non-Proliferation Act. It is highly unlikely that large amounts of plutonium can be effectively safeguarded anywhere, including Japan. Even if we trust Japan not to build nuclear weapons with our plutonium, a precedent will have been set that other advanced but perhaps less trustworthy nations can be expected to seek to exploit. It will be all the more difficult and perhaps diplomatically impossible to say "no" to such nations after saying "yes" to Japan. I would like, if I could, to insert a short article from Nuclear Fuel dated September 26 that points out that the talks with the Japanese are not going particularly well, largely over a disagreement on U.S. insistence that the Japanese, as part of an overall understanding, agree to require full-scope safeguards as a condition of their exports to other nations. Mr. BONKER. Mr. Leventhal, I think you are filling up our record, but it looks like a short report. Mr. LEVENTHAL. It is a short article. Mr. BONKER. Hearing no objection, it will be included.1 Mr. LEVENTHAL. On the safeguards issue, if I might, also, there is another short article from the same issue dealing with IAEA Director Hans Blix' position that the Agency performs essentially a promotional role, not a regulatory role, and that safeguards is part of that promotional function. It is about four paragraphs long. Mr. BONKER. Without objection, so ordered. 2 ADMINISTRATION ROLE Turning to topic four, and I will conclude on this point, the administration's comprehensive safeguards initiative and its prospects for success. The President's statement last March that he would pursue comprehensive safeguards as a condition of supply universally is essential to U.S. nonproliferation efforts. The unfortunate part is that there was apparently no followup at the Williamsburg summit, as the President had indicated there would bethis apparently because of opposition, particularly from France, to the initiative. A further undermining factor is that the administration seems to have violated its own comprehensive safeguards principle with regard to U.S. nuclear fuel and other supply arrangements with non-NPT nations by engaging in fuel supply and other nuclear assistance for India, Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa. And as I noted before, the administration's opposition to the Wolpe amendment also serves to undermine its own comprehensive safeguards initiative. Finally, there is the problem of the ineffectiveness of IAEA safeguards if we ever did achieve full-scope safeguards. That problem, as I indicated in submitting the article about IAEA Director General Blix, really must be dealt with on a high-priority basis. The most effective complement to the administration's comprehensive safeguards initiative would be enactment of the provision in H.R. 3058, to ban U.S. exports of civilian technology and equip 1 See app. 9. 2 See app. 10. ment important to construction of enrichment, reprocessing, and heavy water plants. Without such a ban in U.S. law, we are hardly in a strong position to press other suppliers to join in a universal ban on the export of these dangerous facilities. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. BONKER. Thank you, Mr. Leventhal. [Mr. Leventhal's prepared statement follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF PAUL Leventhal, President, Nuclear Control InSTITUTE Mr. Chairman and members of the Foreign Affairs Committee's Subcommittees on International Security and Scientific Affairs and on International Economic Policy and Trade: I appreciate your invitation to testify today on behalf of Nuclear Control Institute at this joint hearing on pending legislation to amend the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978. These legislative hearings complement Congress' essential role in overseeing the government's nuclear export program to ensure that both the spirit and the letter of non-proliferation law are being adhered to. Congress needs to redouble its oversight role in this area so that such sensitive and far-reaching export decisions as the Administration's recent approval of the retransfer of 143 tons of U.S.-origin heavy water to Argentina are known to Congress and to the public before the fact rather than after. I am Paul Leventhal, President of Nuclear Control Institute, a not-for-profit educational organization concerned exclusively with the problem of nuclear-weapons proliferation. We develop studies and strategies for exploring options to strengthen the international nuclear non-proliferation regime and to ban nuclear-explosive materials-separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium-from commerce. Our Board of Directors includes several experts on the proliferation problem who are familiar to this Committee, including Peter A. Bradford, who served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Rear Admiral Thomas D. Davies USN (Ret.), who headed the Non-Proliferation Bureau of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; Denis A. Hayes, who headed the Solar Energy Research Institute; Dr. Theodore T. Taylor, who designed the biggest and smallest fission bombs in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and Barbara W. Tuchman, the historian. Nuclear Control Institute's ongoing activities include chairing an informal Working Group on Nuclear Explosives Control Policy, which is made up of some 30 public-interest organizations that have an interest in this problem area. We organized the pending intervention by six organizations before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to block the export of reactor components to India. We are exploring whether the Administration's decision in the Argentine heavy-water case is lawful under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act. In addition, we recently won a lawsuit in Federal District Court requiring the NRC to release a classified report (the "Morgan Memorandum") on weaknesses in the safeguards inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The case is now under appeal. And, in response to Congressional requests, we have assisted in the preparation of non-proliferation legislation now before the Committee and the subject of these hearings. Each of these efforts is a response to what we regard as dangerous directions being followed by the Reagan Administration in its non-proliferation program. Both by its own domestic nuclear program and by its nuclear-trade initiatives with other nations, this Administration is helping nations that do not now possess nuclear weapons to acquire the capability to build them. At the heart of the problem is the Administration's acceptance of plutonium-a nuclear weapons material-as a legitimate civilian fuel. In sharp contrast to the policies of the Ford and Carter Administrations, the Reagan Administration is promoting reprocessing and plutonium-use both at home and abroad. It is engaging in or facilitating nuclear trade with nations that refuse either to ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to accept international safeguards on the full scope of their nuclear activities or to pledge not to set off nuclear explosions. Unless Congress takes steps promptly to check these policies and practices, the Administration will undercut-perhaps permanently-the traditional U.S. leadership role in non-proliferation, and will cause an already overburdened international inspection system to be overwhelmed by highly sensitive nuclear facilities and materials that cannot be safeguarded effectively against misuse for making weapons of mass destruction. Consequently, Nuclear Control Institute strongly supports the two bills pending before the Committee-H.R. 1417, The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Policy Act of 1983, and H.R. 3058, The Nuclear Explosives Control Act of 1983. In several respects the bills take similar approaches to strengthening non-proliferation law by closing loopholes that permit continued U.S. nuclear assistance to nations refusing to submit to full international inspections for verifying that such assistance is not misused to produce nuclear weapons. We favor prompt enactment of these provisions, as well as those sections of H.R. 3058 that provide other nations positive incentives, in the form of nuclear fuel assurances and technical assistance, to forego the use of explosive plutonium and highly enriched uranium in their nuclear programs. I have organized my testimony to discuss the legislation in the context of the four specific topics raised in your letter of invitation. TOPIC ONE: THE EFFECTIVENESS AS A NON-PROLIFERATION TOOL OF REQUIRING FULLSCOPE SAFEGUARDS AS A PRECONDITION FOR ALL U.S. NUCLEAR EXPORTS Requiring full-scope safeguards as a minimum condition of nuclear supply can be a very effective non-proliferation tool, but only if two things happen: First, non-proliferation law and other export law be revised to eliminate the double standard that now allows some exports to be conditioned on the receiving country accepting safeguards on all its nuclear activities, and some exports to be conditioned on the recipient agreeing to safeguards only on the particular facility that utilizes an exported item. The United States, by getting its own export policy in order, is then in a far stronger position of leadership, both morally and politically, to pressure other nuclear-exporting nations to do the same. Second, U.S. diplomats and bureaucrats, with cooperation from industry, be prepared to exert such world leadership. This requires the United States to expend far more short-term political capital to achieve long-term non-proliferation and national security gains than has heretofore been the case. It also requires the United States to impose far higher political costs on non-cooperating nations than we ever have been prepared to do. The first task belongs to Congress, and half the task was accomplished on September 30 when the House passed the Wolpe amendment to the Export Administration Act. The amendment was drawn from key provisions of H.R. 1417 and H.R. 3058 to strengthen and harmonize U.S. nuclear export criteria. It would bring internal consistency to the Atomic Energy Act by requiring exports of components and transfers of technology to be governed by the same full-scope safeguards requirements as now applies to exports of nuclear reactors and fuel. A similar amendment soon will be considered by the Senate. The Wolpe Amendment was prompted by three recent decisions of the Reagan Administration to provide substantial nuclear assistance to India, Argentina and South Africa, despite their refusal to ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to accept full-scope safeguards or to pledge not to set off nuclear explosions. The decisions involve a commitment to supply reactor parts to India (or to retransfer to India U.S.-origin parts from other countries), an approval of a retransfer of U.S.-origin heavy water to Argentina, and an approval of a technology transfer to permit U.S. companies to service and maintain two French-built power reactors in South Africa. In each case, the nuclear assistance can go forward because full-scope safeguards is not required by existing law as a condition of supply of these items. The amendment would require the full-scope safeguards criterion to be met with regard to NRC exports of components pursuant to Section 109 of the Atomic Energy Act, as well as retransfer of such components (the India and Argentina cases); to technology transfers by DOE pursuant to Section 57b of the Atomic Energy Act (the South Africa case), and to exports of dual-use items by the Commerce Department when such exports are specified to be used in facilities that produce or utilize special nuclear material, or are determined to be likely to be diverted for that purpose. The amendment provides for a Presidential waiver of the export restrictions and for reporting to Congress on the reasons for such a waiver 60 days before the waiver takes effect, thereby precluding a "surprise" approval as in the Argentina case. The amendment is retroactive to August 1, 1983, in order to pick up the approvals for Argentina and South Africa. The intensity of opposition to this measure by the Administration and industry suggests that the U.S. Government is not prepared to play a vigorous leadership role for achieving adherence among all suppliers to full-scope safeguards as a minimum condition of nuclear supply. This lack of U.S. leadership is the heart of the proliferation dilemma. Unless Congress strengthens non-proliferation law, and then performs the oversight necessary to ensure that the law is enforced, not bypassed, we are likely to witness a continuation of nuclear business as usual that would put us on a path to a 33-516 0-84-4 |