(2) The Department of Defense has stated its
view that the proliferation risks posed by reprocess-
ing and separated plutonium under international
safeguards are unacceptably high.
(3) The Deputy Director of the International
Atomic Energy Agency stated that the excess of plu-
tonium from civilian nuclear programs poses a major
political and security problem worldwide.
(4) Reprocessing programs that will produce
large stockpiles of civil plutonium in nations not
deemed to pose a proliferation risk may encourage
or be used to justify such programs in nations and
regions that pose a proliferation risk.
(5) There are already large surplus stockpiles of
separated plutonium in the world.
(6) Abundant and inexpensive global sources of
uranium and uranium enrichment services have
steadily eroded the economic need for the use of plu-
tonium in civilian nuclear reactors.
(7) Breeder reactors were once supposed to be
the principal consumers of civil plutonium but have
now encountered major financial and technical prob-
lems and recently have been abandoned or shut
down in Germany, France, and Britain and have
suffered major delays in Japan.
(8) Reprocessing was once regarded as an eco-
nomic and efficient approach to nuclear fuel recy-
cling and waste management but is now widely rec-
ognized as extremely costly and posing major envi-
ronmental hazards.
(9) The United States has suspended the pro-
duction of military plutonium and has abandoned
civil reprocessing and commercial breeder reactor de-
velopment in the United States.
(10) The plutonium to be recovered from dis-
mantled United States and Russian warheads will
further augment large surplus stockpiles of sepa-
rated plutonium in the world.
(11) Russia continues to separate plutonium for
both civil and military purposes and has accumu-
lated a surplus of some 30 tons of civil plutonium,
for which there is no safe, commercially viable appli-
cation.
(12) Much of the world surplus of civil pluto-
nium has resulted from reprocessing in the United
Kingdom, France, and Japan of spent fuel derived
from United States-origin low enriched uranium,
and the United States continues to bear responsibil-
ity for the transfer and disposition of such material
under nuclear cooperation agreements with these
countries.
(13) Enormous amounts of additional civil plu-
tonium, exceeding the amounts of plutonium now
contained in nuclear weapons, may soon be recov-
ered in reprocessing plants that are to be started up
or constructed in the United Kingdom, France, and
Japan in the near future.
(14) Once these new plants start up and be-
come contaminated with radiation, the environ-
mental difficulties of shutdown and clean-up increase
dramatically.
(15) The new Thermal Oxide Reprocessing
Plant (THORP) in the United Kingdom, if operated
as proposed, will separate 59 tons of plutonium from
spent fuel over the next decade.
(16) The President has written to Members of
Congress that he has asked for a review of United
States nonproliferation policies, including specific at-
tention to the issue of British reprocessing.
(17) The Irish government declared on Feb-
ruary 1st that the bringing on stream of THORP
represents an additional and unnecessary risk to the
health and safety of the Irish population and that
the accumulation of plutonium with no commercial
use constitutes a grave proliferation risk.
(18) The parties to the 1974 Convention for the
Prevention of Marine Pollution from Land-based
Sources agreed on June 16 that a new or revised
discharge authorization for radioactive discharges
from nuclear reprocessing installations should only
be issued by national authorities if special consider-
ation is given to information on the need for spent
fuel reprocessing and on other options, a full envi-
ronmental impact statement, and other criteria.
(19) The Government of the United Kingdom is
currently conducting an internal review, scheduled to
be completed this year, to determine if THORP will
be allowed to start up or if an independent public in-
quiry into its operation will be held prior to a start-
up determination.
(20) In a June 1993 report by the General Ac-
counting Office entitled ‘‘Nuclear Non-Proliferation:
Japan’s Shipment of Plutonium Raises Concerns
about Reprocessing’’, a British Government official
was quoted as stating that the rationale for operat-
ing THORP is no longer valid because THORP can-
not be a financially successful venture, and that
without economic justification to engage in commer-
cial reprocessing, the basis for reprocessing in the
United Kingdom has collapsed.
(b) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Con-
gress that the start-up or continued operation of any plu-
tonium separation plant presents serious environmental
hazards and increases the risk of nuclear proliferation and
therefore should be suspended until the outstanding pro-
liferation and environmental concerns set forth in sub-
section (a) have been thoroughly addressed and resolved.
(c) PRESIDENTIAL ACTION.—The Congress urges the
President—
(1) to convey the sense of the Congress set
forth in subsection (b) to the Governments of the
United Kingdom, France, Japan, and Russia; and
(2) to address the proliferation and environ-
mental implications of THORP in high-level bilateral
discussions with the Government of the United
Kingdom before the conclusion of the review de-
scribed in subsection (a)(19).
Æ