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   Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, for a lot of reasons, I believe the nuclear power industry cannot be a dinosaur, as was suggested earlier.

   The world today has 6 billion people on it; 2 billion of those people have no electricity. They are without power. In the next 25 years, we expect another 2 billion people to be added to the world population. Many of the people who do have power today, have it only in very limited quantities.

   We know there is an extraordinary expansion of life expectancy and improvement in lifestyle where electricity is present. People can have water pumps. They don't have to go to the well with a bucket or a jug to get water for their families. There is no doubt the quality of people's lives, the length of their lives, some estimate it increases as much as 50 percent, is

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   As a matter of humanity, a human imperative, nothing could be better than expanding the availability of electricity throughout the world. We now know that there will be at least a 50-percent increase in electricity generation by the year 2020, doubling by the year 2050. That is a big increase.

   Now at the same time, a number of people--Vice President GORE being one of them--have expressed great concern over global warming and the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. They tried to commit this country to a massive reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases. In fact, the Kyoto treaty the President signed and supports calls on this Nation, between the years 2008 to 2012, to actually reduce our emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels. When you consider at the same time our economy, population and demand for energy has continued to increase since 1990, greenhouse gas cuts envisioned by the Kyoto treaty would amount to a cut of nearly one-third of today's energy use in America to achieve that goal,

   a one-third cut. That is a big-time number. We are heading for a train wreck. We want to reduce emissions and increase power generation at the same time, yet we refuse to develop new nuclear power infrastructure. Some greenies think you should live out in the woods and just let the rain and sunshine take care of you and maybe have a windmill to generate power. But that is not proven to be efficient or effective. There will be opportunities to expand the use of renewable energy, but it does not have the potential, using even the most generous forecasts, to reach a level that would satisfy the demands of the Kyoto treaty.

   So how are we going to do it? Twenty percent of the power generated in the United States is generated by nuclear power. France has 80 percent. They continue to build nuclear power plants on a regular basis. Look at it this way. Ask yourself, how can we meet the demand of both increased energy and reduced emissions? Nuclear power has no greenhouse gases that are emitted from the production of electricity. It emits no waste into the atmosphere. It is the only large-scale clean-burning electricity production method. Yet, the very same people who fight for even more stringent clean air regulations are often also opposed to nuclear power.

   Twenty percent of our power, at this very moment, comes from nuclear power. Utility companies have not ordered a new plant since the late 1970s, so it has been over 20 years since we have built a new nuclear plant. Other industrial nations are continuing to build them, such as France, Germany, and Japan and China. Do we want China to build coal plants to meet its massive need for electricity? Is that what we are asking them to do? Are we saying China can have it, but not us?

   Fundamentally, we need to confront this question for humanity's sake. Should we increase the production of nuclear power? Through over 50 years of experience with nuclear energy, there has not been a single American injured from a nuclear plant, not a single person in the world injured by the production of American-generated equipment for nuclear power? Not one. None. How many have died in coal mines, or on oil rigs, or from truck wrecks in transporting oil and coal, and train wrecks? Which is safer, I submit to you?

   This is an irrational thing to me. I can't understand such objection from those who long for a cleaner environment. I believe, first of all, we need to understand that America needs more power to support our growing economy and population. The world needs more power. It will be a good thing for the world. To meet these demands, we are going to have to use nuclear power. I don't just say this as a Member of the Senate. I am not an expert. However, last year I happened to be in attendance at the North Atlantic Assembly, in Edinburgh, Scotland, with members of Parliaments from all over the world gathered there. Ambassador John B. Ritch, III, addressed us. He is President Clinton's appointed Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Administration. He shared some important thoughts with us about the future of nuclear power. He mentioned some of the things I have already shared with you. From his remarks, he said:

   Nuclear energy, the one technology able to meet large base-load energy needs with negligible greenhouse emissions, remains subject to what amounts to an intense, widespread political taboo.

   Then he goes on to point out that we cannot possibly meet our world energy demands without increasing nuclear power. How is it we are not able to do that? How is it we have not been able to build a single nuclear plant in the United States, even though we have not had a single person injured from the operation of one since the conception of the program over 50 years ago? How is that

   true?

   Well, one of the tactics that has been used is to spread this fear that nuclear waste is going to pollute the environment forever, and that it can't be stored anywhere. It is just going to destroy the whole Earth if we do that. Well, that notion is so far from reality. I understand the Senators' political commitment to their State and maybe they believe it is going to be somehow negative to their State. They talked about how much exposure to radiation you are going to have. This stuff is not going to be thrown all over the sides of the highways. The waste will be stored in a solid rock tunnel in the ground, inside thick, technologically advanced, containers within the tunnel. It is not a lot of product. It doesn't take up a lot of space. It can be safely stored.

   Who is going to be subjected to any radiation from it? Are they going to bring schoolchildren down there to look at it? It is going to be sealed off from the public. The Yucca mountain site is in the remote desert, in area that was previously used to test over 1000 atomic bombs.

   Somebody said the Lord created that desert so we could put that waste there. I don't know, but I say this to you. I don't see how the storage of very well-contained nuclear waste, placed hundreds of feet underground in the Yucca Mountain chamber--inside a mountain--is going to damage the life, health, and safety of anybody. It is beyond my comprehension that we would argue that. I know that maybe people don't like it to come through their States. People don't like interstate highways coming through their farms, and they don't want to move their homes, so they object. But if the Government decides that is where the interstate highway has to go for the good of all the people, they build a highway. I used to be a Federal attorney and we would condemn people's property and take it for public use.

   Our country has 20 percent of its power generated by nuclear power plants, and we are incapable of finding a place in this whole vast country to put it? That is beyond my comprehension. We have to act responsibly and take decisive action. Nuclear energy simply must remain a part of our mix in the future.

   I thought it was interesting that the Senator from Nevada indicated that Vice President GORE would not sign this bill. Well, maybe he would not sign this bill. Vice President GORE has also indicated that he flatly opposes offshore drilling for natural gas. Natural gas is the only non-nuclear fuel which has a chance of filling the demand for new power while reducing overall air emissions in the near future. Gas is produced predominantly from offshore wells. We have a significant deposit off the gulf coast of the United States. Yet the Vice President opposes the development of these significant deposits of clean burning fuel.

   But the Vice President not only opposes nuclear power, he opposes the storing of nuclear waste in a sane way, in a single, guarded location--and not scattered in all 50 States, in hundreds of different locations. He also opposes, as he said recently, offshore gas production.

   How are we going to meet our demands for the future, I ask? I think the Vice President's position is a very unsustainable position. It will not hold up to scrutiny and he will have to answer to that. If we are not going to use nuclear power and we are not going to use gas, what are we going to use? How can we do it without a huge cost and increase in expense for energy in America. The world is heading into a new century. Nuclear power is going to play a key role, without any doubt in my mind, in making the lives and the health of people all over this world better tomorrow than it is today.

   It is

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   But it does make you wonder sometimes how people who seem to be caring deeply for the environment and our future could block the things that would be most helpful to us. That is a concern I have.

   I hope we can reach the extra two votes. We have 65 votes. We need 67 to override a Presidential veto. There is bipartisan support--Republicans and Democrats--for this bill. It is the right thing to do.

   I urge the President not to veto it. If he does, I urge the Members of this body in both political parties to vote for clean air, vote for the future, vote for improving the quality of our lives, both in the United States and the world. For over 50 years the United States has been a leader in the peaceful use of nuclear power. The United States needs to continue to be a leader in this industry. We don't need to be sitting on the sidelines while the rest of the world is developing the technology to produce even safer electric power through nuclear energy and even greater productivity through nuclear energy.

   I have had the opportunity to talk to some of the country's finest scientists. They are absolutely convinced that if we improve regulations, have a little more research and a little more commitment, we can create a nuclear power plant that may even eliminate nuclear waste entirely. But that is a step for the future, but the not too distant future. It is an exciting time.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

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