37 



years ago, and we hoped that this agreement will be signed by our 

 President 2 years ago. 



I had a discussion with the State Department here and I know 

 that the State Department, it was the body here who strongly was 

 against this law for some, I can repeat, ridiculous reason, some 

 small, smallest, smallest disagreement, not principle but smallest 

 formal disagreement with some formality, with some technical for- 

 mality. 



But now I feel that we have no possibility to pass such draft of 

 law through our military, through our KGB, because during the 

 last 2 years, the secrecy, the governmental secrecy has been arising 

 enormously. Literally 3 days ago, my President signed, or 1 week 

 ago, my President signed a special decree about state secrets. 

 Under this decree — I have this decree with me — practically any 

 Arctic investigation, any Arctic activity has the possibility to an- 

 nounce like classified activity. 



So we have a real — it will meet with some active development of 

 our military. We are past the point. 



Mr. Weldon. Thank you. I have one final question before I turn 

 to our ranking member for questions. Dr. Yablokov, it is no secret 

 the Russian Navy is decommissioning a number of nuclear-powered 

 submarines and decommissioning a lot of nuclear material. What 

 happens if there are no additional dollars nor additional commit- 

 ment to deal with the problem? What do you predict is going to be 

 the result of this massive downsizing? As you have testified, there 

 is a huge storage problem now that is not protected storage of nu- 

 clear waste and nuclear fuel. What is going to happen if the world 

 does not respond to the problem that Russia has? 



Dr. Yablokov. I mentioned, not now but in the press conference, 

 I mentioned that during last year, my Government passed a special 

 declassified resolution about organizing the commission of nuclear 

 submarine and failed. But September 1, it was a special open dec- 

 laration, open resolution of my Government, which looked like a 

 good step for solving this problem. They created a special society, 

 half government, half commercial society. They put some money to 

 cut down this nuclear submarine. 



It is an enormous problem, much, much larger than my friend 

 from Norway just mentioned. We have 142 decommissioned nuclear 

 submarines — 142 — not only in the Arctic but all over my country, 

 and nobody knows what we have to do with such a huge amount 

 of metal, a huge amount of so on and so on and so on. 



It looks like this decision of my Government opens the door, 

 opens the door. It is possible to involve some commercial capital 

 money to solving this problem. Let us see what happens. 



Mr. Weldon. Thank you. Dr. Yablokov. 



I now turn it over to the distinguished gentleman from South 

 Carolina. 



Mr. Spratt. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

 you both for your testimony. Unfortunately, I had to step out and 

 I missed some of it, so if I repeat your question, I beg your pardon. 



Basically, I want to ask a few fundamental questions. First of all, 

 I am curious to know the sources of your information, the places 

 where you obtained the information that you lay out in your testi- 

 mony. Is this in the open domain? Is this information available to 



