THE DISPOSAL OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL AND 

 OTHER TOXIC WASTE IN OCEANS AND TRIBUTARIES 



House of Representatives, Military Research and 

 Development Subcommittee of the Committee on 

 National Security and the Fisheries, Wildlife 

 AND Oceans Subcommittee of the Committee on 

 Resources, Washington, DC, Wednesday, December 6, 

 1995. 

 The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 1:42 p.m., in room 

 2118, Raybum House Office Building, Hon. Curt Weldon (chairman 

 of the Military Research and Development Subcommittee) and Hon. 

 Jim Saxton (chairman of the Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans Sub- 

 committee) presiding. 



Members present: Representatives Weldon, Saxton, Farr, 

 Gilchrest, Hastings, Jones, Spratt, Ortiz, Pallone, Underwood, 

 McHale, Geren, and Kennedy. 



Staff present: Bill Andahazy and John Rayfield. 



OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CURT WELDON, A REPRESENT- 

 ATIVE FROM PENNSYLVANIA, CHAIRMAN, MILITARY RE- 

 SEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE 



Mr. Weldon. The subcommittees will come to order. 



This morning, it gives me a great pleasure to cochair with Con- 

 gressman Jim Saxton of the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife 

 and Oceans what I call a landmark hearing. I call this a landmark 

 hearing because, for the first time, we bring together other nations 

 in a Congressional forum to discuss the environmental impacts 

 caused by both the construction and destruction of the cold war, 

 weapons that, thank God, we never had to see used, but today may 

 be just as destructive, silently causing devastation of our eco- 

 system. We are all concerned about the potential impacts on radio- 

 activity from exposed obsolete nuclear weapons or products of nu- 

 clear weapons that are improperly stored or haphazardly dumped 

 in our oceans. 



Last Congress, as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on 

 Oceanography, Gulf of Mexico, and the Outer Continental Shelf, I 

 worked closely with my good friend and chairman of that sub- 

 committee, Solomon Ortiz, our honorable friend who is here with 

 us today as he is also a member of this subcommittee, to begin to 

 raise the awareness of our colleagues in the House regarding the 

 importance of understanding the marine environment. 



As a matter of national security, the U.S. military has long uti- 

 lized oceanography as a tool for maintaining a strong national de- 

 fense. Historically, however, the United States in a nondefense ca- 

 pacity has spent relatively little understanding our oceans while at 



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