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1A) Nevada Veto of Yucca Mountain Site
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I advise my colleagues that yesterday another significant step was taken in the process to address relief for nuclear energy by the approval of the Yucca Mountain process--and I emphasize process because it is a step-by-step effort. The Governor of Nevada came to Washington to deliver his veto over the President's recommendation to site this Nation's high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Further, Chairman BINGAMAN, chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, today took yet another step in introducing a resolution, S.J. Res. 34, to override the Nevada veto. Senator Bingaman's action sets in motion the congressional fast-track procedure in both the House and Senate to approve this resolution, which is done by a simple majority. We finally may approve a safe, remote, central facility for our Nation's nuclear waste. Without this repository, our nuclear plants would have to shut down, and I do not think we can address that risk, recognizing nearly 20 percent of our Nation's energy is generated by nuclear power.

Without Yucca Mountain, the cold-war legacy sites throughout the U.S. will not get cleaned up because we will have no place to put the waste. The Federal Government has an obligation for the spent fuel and the DOE waste, and to meet this obligation we must open that repository, and we must do it soon.

To date, we have spent over 20 years and over $4 billion to investigate and characterize the site. The science tells us this is the place. I join Senator Bingaman in urging my colleagues to vote for this resolution when it comes before the Senate.

1B) Resolution Approving Yucca Mountain Site
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, yesterday, the Governor of the State of Nevada submitted to the Senate and to the House of Representatives a notice of disapproval of the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, pursuant to section 116 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The notice was duly referred in the Senate to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources under rule XXV of the Standing Rules of the Senate. Under section 115 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, it is my duty, as the chairman of the committee to which the notice of disapproval was referred, to introduce, by request, a resolution of repository siting approval not later than the first day of session following the day on which the Governor's notice of disapproval was submitted.

In accordance with the statutory requirement, I am today introducing the resolution of repository siting approval. The text of the resolution is prescribed by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The resolution will be referred to committee for a period of up to 60 days. Under the terms of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the Governor's notice of disapproval will stand, and the Department of Energy will be prohibited from applying for a license to develop a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, unless both Houses of Congress pass the resolution of repository siting approval and it becomes law within 90 days from yesterday.

This is an extraordinary process. The 97th Congress, which prescribed this process for us to follow 20 years ago, did not do so lightly. The Members of the 97th Congress only arrived at this procedure after considerable debate. Representative Morris K. Udall, who was the principal architect of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, explained the thinking of our predecessors. ``We are all agreed that the States ought to have a veto,'' Chairman Udall said. ``If you are going to put something as important, as a nuclear waste repository, in a State, then the State, through its Governor or legislature, ought to be able to say no thanks.'' But, he continued, ``we are also agreed that once the State has made that veto, that there ought to be mechanism so that, in the national interest, it could be overridden, as we do in war when we need an air base or at other times when we need Federal eminent domain.''

The process upon which we are embarking today was designed to serve those two goals. It will afford the State of Nevada a fair hearing on its objections to the repository and will ensure that those objections stand unless the administration can persuade both Houses of Congress to override them. At the same time, it will give the administration an opportunity to present its case and to override the State's objections if it can show its decision was sound and in the national interest.

It is my intention, once the Senate completes action on the energy bill, to schedule hearings before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to consider the President's recommendation of the Yucca Mountain site and the objections of the State of Nevada to the use of the site for the nuclear waste repository and to report the committee's recommendation to the Senate within the prescribed 60-day period as the 97th Congress envisioned.

1C) Yucca Mountain by the Numbers
Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to share with you some disturbing numbers regarding the shipping of high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

First, let me tell you it will take over 96,000 truck and rail shipments for this material to get there. These shipments will go through 44 States, 703 counties, and at least 109 major population cities. More than 7 million people live within one-half mile of the nuclear transportation routes. Close to 50 million people live within 3 miles of these shipping routes. And contrary to what the DOE espouses, nuclear waste currently stored at 77 reactor and storage sites in 39 States, is not just going to magically appear at Yucca Mountain. These shipments will come through your communities for over 38 years.

The cost associated with cleaning up just one accident in your community is over $13.7 billion taxpayer dollars, not counting the health care costs associated with those affected. That is the story, Mr. Speaker, by the numbers. The sad truth is these numbers just do not add up to a plan which protects the safety and security of all Americans. I urge my colleagues to oppose the Yucca Mountain bill.

1D) Transport of Nuclear Fuel
Mr. President, on a separate topic, I would like to discuss an amendment I will be offering next week. Two years ago, the Department of Energy proposed to send a shipment of foreign spent nuclear fuel through Missouri. The route selected went through the heavily populated areas of St. Louis, Columbia, and Kansas City, along a major highway, Interstate 70, that was undergoing major repairs. Governor Carnahan intervened, and an alternate, more rural route was selected. The shipment was completed without incident.

Then last year, Missouri was asked to accept another shipment through the State. Governor Holden raised the same objections that had been discussed the year earlier. And after he did, a curious thing happened: The Department of Energy held up shipments from a reactor inside Missouri. This reactor produced isotopes used in cancer treatment. If these shipments did not go forward as scheduled, the reactor would have to be closed, halting production of needed medicines for bone cancer patients. I insisted these two matters--the shipments from the reactor in Missouri and the transport of spent nuclear fuel through the State--be delinked, and they were.

Eventually, Governor Holden worked out a safety protocol with the Department and the foreign spent fuel shipment went forward. Although the shipment was completed, we encountered some problems with the timing of its passage through Missouri. Our experience in Missouri over the past 2 years suggests the Department of Energy's route selection process deserves careful study. How we deal with spent nuclear fuel in this country may be a matter of great controversy, but regardless of one's position on this topic, everyone ought to be able to agree that when spent fuel has to be transported we want it to be done in the safest possible way.

One of the key components in ensuring safe transport of spent fuel is the process for selecting the safest route. My amendment would commission the National Academy of Sciences study of the Department of Energy's route selection process for shipments of spent nuclear fuel. The National Academy would examine the way DOE picks potential routes, the factors it uses to evaluate the safety of these routes, including traffic and accident data, the quality of roads and the proximity to population centers and venues where people congregate, and the process it uses to compare the risks associated with each route. There are a number of reasons why it makes sense to commission this study now. First, the responsibility for this program is divided among multiple agencies. The Department of Transportation sets the regulations for transportation of spent nuclear fuel. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has oversight responsibility and the Department of Energy makes the final decision in consultation with these organizations.

A study will help ensure these agencies are working together and are properly performing their function. Secondly, these agencies are using regulations drafted in the 1990s. The devastating events of September 11 have taught us we have to rethink all of our security procedures, and while I understand the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued some additional guidelines since that date, I believe a complete review is in order and an NSA study will help us ensure that our agencies are focused on the appropriate safety factors.

Finally, Congress will be considering a highway bill next year. If there are safety problems on routes that are likely to be used for cross-country shipments of spent nuclear fuel, we ought to address them in the highway bill. We need to start the study now, however, if we want to have the information in time for a debate on the highway bill. This amendment is not intended to take sides on the controversial issue that will soon be before this Senate. Its purpose is to get a neutral, nonpartisan review of an important public safety function that has received very little scrutiny. I yield the floor.

2A) Iraq's Missiles
   Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the danger of Iraq's development of medium range ballistic missiles in violation of United Nations Resolution 687. I recently chaired a hearing of the Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. Two of our witnesses were weapon inspectors in Iraq during the 1990s as part of United National Special Commission, UNSCOM, Inspection Teams. Their candid statements painted a dark picture and outlined some difficult decisions we have to make.

   When the gulf war ended, and the United National Security Council passed Resolution 687, Iraq agreed to destroy, remove or render harmless all ballistic missiles, related parts, and repair and production facilities with a range greater than 150 kilometers. Further, Iraq agreed to not develop or acquire them in the future. The dedicated men and women of UNSCOM and the International Atomic Energy Agency ferreted out and destroyed a large share of Iraq's prohibited weapons and related infrastructure in the 1990s. Despite the remarkable job they did, significant disarmament tasks and compliance issues continued through UNSCOM's departure from Iraq in December 1998.

   Before the gulf war, Iraq had a variety of missile programs. These programs were more than missile components and hardware. Iraq had a trained team of missile experts, capable of reverse engineering a Soviet SCUD missile and moving into indigenous production of an Iraqi version 2 years after initial acquisition. Their indigenous production capability depended upon low reliability, low technology, low safety, and a sophisticated foreign assistance and supplier network.

   Iraq has retained a great deal of this knowledge. Its team remains largely intact working on permitted U.N. missile programs, which provide cover for proscribed missile development. The liquid-fueled Al-Samoud missile most likely is capable of exceeding the range threshold set by U.N. resolutions and is widely believed to be a precursor for longer-range missiles. The short-range Abhabil-100 missile program is providing Iraq with a solid-propellant infrastructure and other important technologies that could be applied to a longer-range missile in the future.

   At what point do allowed programs fall under the heading of related parts or production capability for longer-range missiles? I think the answer in Iraq's case is, now.

   Likewise, Iraq maintains expertise in converting aircraft to unmanned aerial vehicles, lately demonstrated in modifications to L-29 trainer aircraft. These unmanned aerial vehicles could be used to attack Israel or American forces in the region.

   Iraq has persistently deceived, evaded, and concealed its weapon programs. In spite of this, UNSCOM believed that it had accounted for the elimination of all but a handful of Iraq's SCUD missiles. So why are we faced with this on-going threat to American security? It is true that Iraq was able to hide some assets. More importantly, though, Iraq was able to maintain its technical expertise and industrial base under the guise of U.N. permitted missile programs.

   Iraq built its missile programs over a number of years with assistance from companies in many countries. We must work with our allies and international partners to contain the missile program. We must get inspectors back into Iraq and re-establish the U.N. monitoring program, and we must keep Saddam Hussein bottled up and force him to confront obstacles in every direction. An U.N. inspection team with full international support and access can complicate, constrain, and slow Iraq's clandestine efforts and give us a better understanding of what Iraq can do. But an inspection team, at its best, can contain or manage, not eliminate, the threat.

   We are now faced with the possibility that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors. We also must consider under what conditions would Hussein give a biological or chemical agent or short-range ballistic missile to a terrorist group? This January marked the 11th anniversary since the start of the gulf war. As the war on terrorism evolves, we cannot forget our past attempts, successes, and failures in Iraq.

   President Bush is right to continue to make Iraq an issue for the international community. We will need international support if we are going to have an effective strategy for eliminating Saddam Hussein as a threat to world peace.

3A) Iraq Using Oil Money for WMD

   Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I want to take a moment to discuss where we are on the energy bill and how I see us moving forward. As I think the record will note, prior to the recess I filed an amendment on sanctions against Iraq. The specific justification for that was my belief that, at a time when we are seeing the situation in the Mideast erupt, we find ourselves in a position where we are importing over 800,000 barrels a day from Iraq, a country where we are enforcing a no-fly zone, putting the lives of our men and women at risk. At the same time as we are importing this oil, we put it in our aircraft and use it to enforce the no-fly zone. As a consequence, in Iraq, Saddam Hussein generates a cashflow that allows him to keep his Republican Guard well paid and obviously contributes to Iraq's capability of developing weapons of mass destruction .

   The purpose of the amendment is to initiate a sanction against Iraq until such time as we can satisfy ourselves that the U.N. inspectors have evaluated whether, indeed, Saddam is using his oil money to develop weapons of massdestruction . I may bring that up today. I have previously received from the majority leader a commitment that he would allow an up-or-down vote on that particular subject at a point in time. I think this may be an opportune time.

   The rationale for that is obvious. We find ourselves in a position now where Iraq has indicated it probably will initiate a curtailment of oil exports from that country for a 30-day

   period. We can only ponder the results of that, as to what it will mean to the consumers in the United States as we see ourselves continuing to be dependent on foreign sources of oil.

   I want to take a moment here to discuss where we are in the energy bill and my commitment to see us move forward on it. As you know, we have had a number of successful amendments. I think we have developed a stronger bill. I think it is appropriate to give a rundown on the current situation in the Mideast before I discuss that, and how that has increased the importance of moving an energy bill off the floor.

   There is virtually no way to explain the situation in the Mideast. I will not go into the details, other than to highlight the effects it will have on the United States.

   While we were on our Easter recess, clearly the tinderbox in the Mideast exploded. In 2 weeks, we have seen 5 suicide bombers; we have seen some 29 Israelis killed, 100 wounded. The same is true on the other side, the Palestinians. Israelis rolled into Yasser Arafat's headquarters in the Palestine settlement when Prime Minister Sharon declared, ``Israel is at war.''

   What did that do to the price of oil? It jumped, first $3 a barrel on Monday, March 25, closed at $24.53; trading at $28, and it is going up over $30. The Iraqis are calling on the Arab States to use oil as a weapon--oil as a weapon, Mr. President. Quoting from a statement issued by the ruling Iraqi Baath Party:

   If the oil weapon is not used in the battle to defend our nations and safeguard our lives and dignity against American and Zionist aggression, it is meaningless.

   Now Saddam announces a 30-day embargo against U.S. consumption--basically a 30-day reduction of his output.

   New reports emerge that Saddam Hussein had planned to ram a suicide tanker into a U.S. warship in the Persian Gulf. That came out of a Christian Science Monitor story, which I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD.

   There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

   Ex-Smuggler Describes Iraqi Plot To Blow Up U.S. Warship

   Iraq planned clandestine attacks against American warships in the Persian Gulf in early 2001, according to an operative of Iranian nationality who says he was given the assignment by ranking members of Saddam Hussein's inner circle.

   The alleged plan involved loading at least one trade ship with half a ton of explosives, and sailing under an Iranian flag to disguise Iraq's role, using a crew of suicide bombers to blow up a U.S. ship in the Gulf.

   The operative, who says he smuggled weapons for Iraq through Iran for Al Qaeda during the late 1990s, says he was told that $16 million had already been set aside for the assignment--the first of ``nine new operations'' he says the Iraqis wanted him to carry out, which were to include missions in Kuwait.

   The first plot, remarkably similar to the attack on the USS Cole on Oct. 12, 2000, was never carried out. The status of the other nine operations remains unclear.

   The smuggler, Mohamed Mansour Shahab, now in the custody of Kurdish opponents of Mr. Hussein in northern Iraq, says he was first told of the role he was to play in the plan in February 2000--one month after an apparently unrelated attempt in Yemen to target a U.S. destroyer, the USS The Sullivans, failed when the bombers' boat, overloaded with explosives, sank. Suicide bombers later succeeded in striking the USS Cole in Yemen, leaving 17 U.S. sailors dead and a gaping 40-by-40 foot hole in the side of the warship.

   TERROR'S FOOTPRINTS

   If this Iranian smuggler is telling the truth, it would represent the first information in nearly a decade directly linking Baghdad to terrorist plans. No evidence has surfaced to date that Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks or the bombing of the Cole. But President George W. Bush has declared Iraq part of an ``axis of evil,'' and makes no secret of his determination to end the rule of Saddam Hussein as part of his ``war on terrorism.''

   The last publicly known terrorism involvement by Baghdad was a failed assassination plot against Bush's father, former President George H. W. Bush, during a visit to Kuwait in 1993. The elder Bush orchestrated the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq.

   ``The Iraqis may have been waging war against the U.S. for 10 years without us even knowing about it,'' says Magnus Ranstorp, at the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrews University in Scotland. ``Iraq may have fought, using terrorism as the ultimate fifth column, to counter U.S. sanctions and bombing. Plausible deniability is something Iraq ..... would want to ensure, putting layer upon layer to hide their role.''

   Part of the justification for any future U.S. strike against Iraq may be the kind of information provided by the young-faced, nervous Iranian smuggler, now held in the U.S.-protected Kurdish ``safe haven'' of northern Iraq.

   Mr. Shahab spoke last weekend in an intelligence complex run by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of two rival armed Kurdish factions that control northern Iraq. He did not appear coerced to speak, and bore no physical signs that he had been mistreated since his arrest on May 16, 2000.

   Still, shaking nervously and swallowing repeatedly, he at first refused to answer questions, saying that he was concerned about his family's safety in Iran. Two days later--after learning that part of his smuggling history and role in several killings had already been made public in the New Yorker magazine--he agreed to describe information that he had previously withheld, about Iraq's plan to target U.S. warships.

   ``If this information is true, it would be in the interest of the U.S., and of all the world, for the U.S. to be here to find out,'' says a senior Kurdish security officer involved in the case. Kurdish investigators were initially skeptical of some parts of Shahab's story. But the investigators say they later independently confirmed precise descriptions of the senior Iraqi officials Shahab says he met, by cross-examining a veteran Iraqi intelligence officer in their custody, and checking other sources.

   Wearing a pale-green military jacket, dark-blue sweat pants and worn plastic sandals, Shahab softly recounts how he smuggled arms and explosives for Al Qaeda and the Iraqis. He at times flashes a boyish smile--the same disarming grin he uses in images on a roll of film he was carrying when arrested. Shahab also claims to be an assassin. The photos--shown to the Monitor--show Shahab killing an unidentified man with a knife. He grins at the camera as he holds up the victim's severed ear.

   During a two-and-a-half-hour interview, Shahab describes the origin of the plot to blow up U.S. warships, while his hands work nervously. He received an urgent phone call early in 2000, from a longtime Afghan contact named Othman, who told him to go to a meeting in Iraq. In February 2000, Shahab says he was taken to the village of Ouija, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein near Hussein's clan base at Tikrit, in north central Iraq.

   At the meeting, he says, were two influential Iraqis, fellow clansmen of Saddam Hussein: Ali Hassan al-Majid--Mr. Hussein's powerful cousin and former defense minister--and Luai Khairallah, a cousin and friend of Hussein's notoriously brutal son Uday. Mr. al-Majid is known among Iraqi Kurds as ``Chemical Ali,'' for his key role in the genocidal gassing and destruction of villages in northern Iraq that killed more than 100,000 Kurds in 1987 and 1988.

   The Iraqis said they considered Shahab to be Arab, and not Persian, and could trust him because he was from Ahvaz, a river city in southwest Iran rich with smugglers and close to the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Kuwait. It is known as ``Arabistan'' because of the number of Arabs living there.

   NINE MISSIONS

   Al-Majid and Mr. Khairallah spoke of the nine operations: We've allocated $16 million already for you,'' Shahab remembers them telling him. ``We start with the first one: We need you to buy boats, pack them with 500 kilograms of explosives each, and explode U.S. ships in Kuwait and the Gulf.''

   The plan was ``long term,'' Shahab says, and meant to be carried out a year or so later, in early 2001, after he had carried out another mission to take refrigerator motors to the Taliban. Each motor had a container attached holding an apparently important liquid unknown to Shahab. He says he doesn't know if all nine operations mentioned were similar to the boat plan, or completely different. Some were to take place in Kuwait.

   The attack against a U.S. vessel, Shahab recounts al-Majid and Khairallah explaining, was to be ``a kind of revenge because [the Americans] were killing Iraqis, and women and children were dying ``because of stringent UN sanctions, which the U.S. backed most strongly. ``They said: `This is the Arab Gulf, not the American Gulf,' '' Shahab recalls, referring to the large U.S. naval presence in the area.

   The Iraqis knew that Shahab, with his legitimate Iranian passport and wealth of smuggler contacts, would have little trouble purchasing the common 400-ton wooden trading boats. He would have raised few eyebrows sailing under an Iranian flag--the only ships in the area, since UN sanctions prohibit such Iraqi trade.

   Shahab was to rent or buy a date farm along the water at Qasba, on the marshy Shatt al-Arab waterway that narrowly divides Iraq and Iran, just a few hundred yards from the Iraqi port city of Fao. Using a powerful small smuggling boat, he says he would have been able to reach Kuwaiti waters from Qasba in just 10 minutes.

   Iraqi agents were to provide the explosives and suicides squad; Shahab was to handle the boats and the regular crew. ``The group that worked with me would sail the ship, and not know about the explosives,'' Shahab says. ``When we crossed out of Iranian waters, we were to kill the crew, hand over the ship to the suicide bombers, and then leave by a smuggler's way.''

   The job, Shahab said, ``was easy for me, I could start at any time.'' Shahab said the Iraqis told him they ``had a lot of suicide bombers in Baghdad'' ready to take part in such an operation.

   But the plans were never finalized for Shahab, and after delivering the refrigerator motors to the Taliban, he was arrested in northern Iraq in May 2000, with his roll of film, as he tried to avoid Iranian military exercises going on along the border to the south. Though carrying a false Kurdish identy card, his accent gave him away at the last PUK checkpoint.

   Iraqi experts say that such a plot is plausible, since Saddam Hussein's multiple intelligence services are sophisticated and smart.

   ``Anything is possible,'' says Sean Boyne, an Ireland-based Iraq specialist, who writes regularly for Jane's Intelligence Review in London. ``Certainly Saddam has gone to great trouble to shoot down [U.S. and British] aircraft'' patrolling no-fly zones in northern and south Iraq, Mr. Boyne says. ``He has invested heavily in his antiaircraft system. He is eager to have a crack at the Americans.''

   That impulse may also help explain the presence of a training camp at Salman Pak, a former biological-weapons facility south of Baghdad. It includes a mock-up Boeing 707 fuselage, which Western intelligence agencies believe has been used for several years to train Islamic militants from across the region in the art of hijacking. A senior Iraqi officer who defected told The New York Times last November that the regime was increasingly getting into the terrorism business. ``We were training these people to attack installations important to the United States,'' an unnamed lieutenant general said. ``The Gulf War never ended for Saddam

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   Still, the political situation Saddam Hussein finds himself in today--in light of the example of decisive U.S. military action in Afghanistan--may not be as conducive to a strike at the U.S. as it was when Shahab says he first heard of the plan to blow up a U.S. warship. In recent months, Boyne notes,

   Iraq has engaged in a region-wide charm offensive to portray itself as a victim, and to build Arab and European support against any U.S. attack. Baghdad is even pursuing warmer ties with Kuwait (at the Arab League summit last week) and with Iran, in an attempt to gain mileage from Iran's anger at being listed as part of Washington's ``axis of evil.''

   While the Bush administration focuses on Iraq's apparent pursuit of weapons of mass destruction --in the absence of UN weapons inspectors, who were kicked out in 1998--clues to Iraq's true role may lie in the credibility of the 29-year-old smuggler from Ahvaz.

   Why is he talking now? ``Afghanistan is finished, so now I feel free to speak,'' says Shahab, who was given the name Mohamed Jawad by accomplices in Afghanistan. Asked if he fears the wrath of senior members of the regime in Baghdad, who still hold power, Shahab replies: ``I lost everything. For many years I worked with assassinations and killing--it doesn't make a difference to me.''

4A) Create a Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness at the CDC
S. 2115. A bill to amend the Public Health Act to create a Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Mr. CLELAND. Madam President, I rise today to introduce legislation to create a National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This center will be the first in the Federal Government to be dedicated solely to protecting the Nation against the public health threats posed by biological, chemical, and radiological weapons attacks. The monumental importance of this task, compounded by the potentially devastating consequences of a failure to give it the national commitment it deserves, makes the creation of a single center that will focus all its energies and resources on encountering the public health threat of bioterrorism imperative and of the greatest urgency. The events of last fall made it painfully clear that we as a nation are not as prepared as we need to be to deal with a bioterrorist attack.

The Federal response to the anthrax crisis has been variously characterized as fragmented, slow, confused, ineffectual--in a word, inadequate. This is in no way a reflection on the dedication or abilities of the men and women who performed so exceptionally well in their roles at the Federal, State, and local level in response to a threat none of us had encountered before. They did not let us down. If anything, we, the Congress of the United States, let them down through years of neglect of the public health sector and by failing to give adequate recognition sooner to the threat posed to us by bioterrorism. It was not until 1999 that the Department of Health and Human Services launched its bioterrorism initiative. The military had understood and taken steps to counter the threat of biological warfare against our troops decades earlier. But it took the civilian sector until 3 years ago even to begin to take seriously the threat of domestic terrorism.

Today not one of us could possibly fail to understand how serious the threat posed by bioterrorism truly is. Some among us were the intended targets of last fall's bioterrorist attack. All of us keenly felt the threat. Between 1999 and 2001, we spent in this Nation a total of $730 million on HHS's bioterrorism initiative, the lion's share of which was used by the CDC to bolster bioterrorism preparedness and response capacity of State and local health departments. This initiative was a good start, but it is now clear that between 1999 and September 11, 2001, we continued to grossly underestimate the national commitment that would be required to counter the threat of bioterrorism. Finally, late last year, as we finished allocating funds for fiscal year 2002 in the wake of September 11 and the anthrax attacks, we boosted HHS bioterrorism spending to $3 billion, roughly a tenfold increase.

Congress is often accused of being reactive instead of proactive, and I think that criticism is, I am sad to say, valid in this case. Certainly a dramatic ratcheting up to our commitment to bioterrorism defense was the right reaction to the events of last fall. But now we are presented with the opportunity, and I think the obligation, to take proactive steps to anticipate future threats and needs based on our recent experiences. My proposal today is just such a step, and I exhort my colleagues in this body and in the House to support the immediate authorization of a National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response.

The CDC is on the public health front in the war against domestic terrorism, the tip of the spear. It is not the only weapon in our arsenal. The CDC joins the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and Health Resources and Services Administration, the many State and local health departments, and many others on the front line. But the CDC is the one with the greatest responsibility in the event of a bioterrorist attack. Despite the critical nature of these responsibilities, we must remember how new they are to the CDC, especially relative to the CDC's 56 years of experience addressing public health threats of a fundamentally different nature. The threat posed by bioterrorism bears a surface resemblance to that posed by more conventional disease outputs. But closer inspection reveals real substantive differences, and a recognition of these differences can make the difference between an effective and ineffective emergency response.

The scientists and other experts at the National Center for Infectious Diseases and the National Center for Environmental Health are highly skilled in controlling and preventing disease outbreaks of a natural origin, but when it comes to bioterrorism, they are treading new ground without a compass. CDC's rapid response personnel, in the absence of the specialized and focused bioterrorism training that a national center could provide, will inevitably bring to bear epidemiological models and methods that, while exceptionally effective in approaching naturally occurring disease outbreaks, are poorly suited to manmade outbreaks.

As my friend and former Senator Sam Nunn so wonderfully noted in testimony to Congress just months before September 11 of last year: "A biological weapons attack cuts across categories and mocks old strategies."

We need a new approach. Under the present structure, CDC's bioterrorism preparedness and response efforts exist alongside and are dispersed among its more traditional programs. This is the prevailing state of affairs because HHS's bioterrorism initiative is still relatively new, not because it is the ideal method of organizing CDC's response to bioterrorism, but the time has come to give the CDC's bioterrorism defense efforts the focus they deserve. Counterbioterrorism activities at the CDC jumped from zero percent of the CDC's overall budget in 1998 to 4 percent in 2001 and 34 percent in 2002.

Each of the CDC's other major programs, none of which now even approaches the bioterrorism program in terms of size, has been given a national center with its own director, its own budget authority, and own accountability to Congress. The CDC's Bioterrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response Program, by contrast, is not even funded through the CDC. Its resources come from the external public health and social service emergency fund. In the Children's Health Act of 2000, we authorized a National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, not because the CDC had no prior programs relating to birth defects and developmental disabilities, but rather because only in their own dedicated center could these programs receive the focus and priority they deserve.

There is a National Center for Health Statistics, but there is right now no National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response. It seems to me that if a dedicated center is called for by the need for accurate health statistics, the urgent need for a comprehensive, effective, and focused defense against bioterrorism certainly demands one as well.

Under my legislation, the National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response would be charged with the following responsibilities: training, preparing, and equipping bioterrorism emergency response teams, who will become the special forces of the Public Health Service, for the unique purpose of immediate emergency response to a man-made assault on the public health; overseeing, expanding, and improving the laboratory response network; and that is a mission; developing response plans for all conceivable contingencies involving terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction, that is much needed and developing protocols of coordination and communication between Federal, State, and local actors, as well as between different Federal actors, in collaboration with these entities, for each of those contingencies, which is highly needed; maintaining, managing, and deploying the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, what an important challenge that is; regulating and tracking the possession, use, and transfer of dangerous biological, chemical, and radiological agents that the Secretary of HHS determines pose a threat to the public health; developing and implementing disease surveillance systems, including a nationwide secure electronic network linking doctors, hospitals, public health departments, and the CDC, for the early detection, identification, collection, and monitoring of terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction; administering grants to state and local public health departments for building core capacities, such as the Health Alert Network; and organizing and carrying out simulation exercises with respect to terrorist attacks involving biological, chemical, or radiological weapons in close coordination with other relevant federal, state, and local actors.

This Center is designed specifically to complement HHS's existing structure for the coordination of its multi-agency counter-bioterrorism initiative. At present, the Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness is responsible for coordinating the bioterrorism functions of the CDC with those of the NIH, with those of the FDA and so forth. The housing of all the CDC's bioterrorism functions in one dedicated center will facilitate the Director's coordination task by providing a single point of contact within the CDC for its bioterrorism defense efforts. When the National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response goes online, the CDC will benefit from a much more focused and prioritized bioterrorism mandate; the Office of Public Health Preparedness will benefit from a streamlining of its coordination duties; and the American people will benefit from a firmer, sounder, stronger defense against bioterrorism.

Let me be clear that what I am proposing is not an added layer of bureaucracy. Most of the responsibilities that would be assigned to the National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response already accrue to the CDC in Atlanta. My legislation would gather these existing bioterrorism functions from their various locations throughout the CDC, which has 21 different buildings, I might add, and bring them all under one roof, one center--an elimination of bureaucratic layers, not an addition of a new one. There are a few new responsibilities that my legislation would charge to the Center that do not currently reside with the CDC, but I challenge anyone to claim that they constitute merely an added layer of bureaucracy. Where there are new responsibilities--for instance, the tracking and regulation not merely of the transfer but of the possession and use of deadly biological toxins--it is only in instances of national security imperatives of the highest order.

In 1947, President Truman advocated and presided over the creation of the National Military Establishment, a new department bringing the Departments of War and Navy under one aegis. In 1949, the National Military Establishment was renamed the Department of Defense. President Truman recognized in the waning days of World War II that the Nation's military as it was then structured would be incapable of meeting future threats. That is important. The Department of Defense, with its unified command structure and cohesive focus on national defense, was his solution to the problem. Today, we all know how well the Department of Defense has served us. In the 1980s, President Reagan appointed the first drug czar to lend focus to what had previously been a loosely dispersed and consequently ineffectual war on drugs. More recently, President Bush created the Office of Homeland Security because he recognized that we need one office and one director whose sole responsibility is to ensure the security of our homeland. In this same tradition, I propose a National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response. When a threat--be it our inability to win future wars, rampant drug use, or terrorist designs on our homeland--reaches critical proportions, our Nation has historically responded by creating a focal point whose sole mandate is addressing that threat. Today, I can say without fear of contradiction that the threat of bioterrorism has surpassed the critical threshold. In my view, we are therefore called upon by history and by our obligation to future generations to create a dedicated National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of my legislation be printed in the RECORD. There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

S. 2115 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. NATIONAL CENTER FOR BIOTERRORISM PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE. Title III of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 241 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following: ``PART R--NATIONAL CENTER FOR BIOTERRORISM PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE ``SEC. 399Z-1. NATIONAL CENTER FOR BIOTERRORISM PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE.

``(a) IN GENERAL.--There is established within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a center to be known as the National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response (referred to in this section as the `Center') that shall be headed by a director appointed by the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

``(b) DUTIES.--The Director of the Center shall--

``(1) administer grants to State and local public health entities, such as health departments, academic institutions, and other public health partners to upgrade public health core capacities, including--

``(A) improving surveillance and epidemiology;
``(B) increasing the speed of laboratory diagnosis;
``(C) ensuring a well-trained public health workforce; and
``(D) providing timely, secure communications and information systems (such as the Health Alert Network);

``(2) maintain, manage, and in a public health emergency deploy, the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile administered by the Centers for Disease Control;

``(3) ensure that all States have functional plans in place for effective management and use of the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile should it be deployed;

``(4) establish, in consultation with the Department of Justice, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense, a list of biological, chemical, and radiological agents and toxins that could pose a severe threat to public health and safety;

``(5) at least every 6 months review, and if necessary revise, in consultation with the Department of Justice, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense, the list established in paragraph (4);

``(6) regulate and track the agents and toxins listed pursuant to paragraph (4) by-- `
`(A) in consultation and coordination with the Department of Justice, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense-- ``(i) establishing procedures for access to listed agents and toxins, including a screening protocol to ensure that individual access to listed agents and toxins is limited; and ``(ii) establishing safety standards and procedures for the possession, use, and transfer of listed agents and toxins, including reasonable security requirements for persons possessing, using, or transferring listed agents, so as to protect public health and safety; and
``(B) requiring registration for the possession, use, and transfer of listed agents and toxins and maintaining a national database of the location of such agents and toxins; and

``(7) train, prepare, and equip bioterrorism emergency response teams, composed of members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, who will be dispatched immediately in the event of a suspected terrorist attack involving biological, chemical, or radiological weapons;

``(8) expand and improve the Laboratory Response Network;

``(9) organize and carry out simulation exercises with respect to terrorist attacks involving biological, chemical, or radiological weapons, in coordination with State and local governments for the purpose of assessing preparedness;

``(10) develop and implement disease surveillance measures, including a nationwide electronic network linking doctors, hospitals, public health departments, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for the early detection, identification, collection, and monitoring of terrorist attacks involving biological, chemical, or radiological weapons;

``(11) develop response plans for all conceivable contingencies involving terrorist attacks with biological, chemical, or radiological weapons, that specify protocols of communication and coordination between Federal, State, and local actors, as well as between different Federal actors, and ensure that resources required to carry out the plans are obtained and put into place; and

``(12) perform any other relevant responsibilities the Secretary deems appropriate.

``(c) TRANSFERS.--
``(1) IN GENERAL.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, on the date described in paragraph (4), each program and function described in paragraph (3) shall be transferred to, and administered by the Center.

``(2) RELATED TRANSFERS.--Personnel employed in connection with the programs and functions described in paragraph (3), and amounts available for carrying out such programs and functions shall be transferred to the Center. Such transfer of amounts does not affect the availability of the amounts with respect to the purposes for which the amounts may be expended.

``(3) PROGRAMS AND FUNCTIONS DESCRIBED.--The programs and functions described in this paragraph are all programs and functions that--
``(A) relate to bioterrorism preparedness and response; and
``(B) were previously dispersed among the various centers that comprise the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

``(4) DATE DESCRIBED.--The date described in this paragraph is the date that is 180 days after the date of enactment of this section.''.

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