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among the United States, Russia, and Norway on Arctic military 

 contamination. At the first trilateral meeting in Horton, Norway, 

 in the spring, United States and Norwegian officials presented the 

 results of our research on nuclear contamination in the Arctic and 

 briefed Russian officials on the integration of sound environmental 

 management practices into military activities. 



Let me note at this point and respond to your question about the 

 participation of the U.S. Office of Naval Reactors. Let me say they 

 have been very productive participants in this dialog and overall in 

 our Arctic military environmental strategy. In fact, the Naval Reac- 

 tors Office has been an active participant on this delegation and 

 was part of the briefings presented to the Russians on the United 

 States nuclear fuel cycle. 



We are still hoping to have a meeting early next year. What 

 needs to happen now is engaging the northern fleet, the Russian 

 northern fleet and the ministry of defense in this military-to-mili- 

 tary dialog. This would be a useful step in encouraging the Rus- 

 sians to take responsibility for their actions and to improve envi- 

 ronmental management of the active and decommissioned sub- 

 marine fleet. In essence, we need to have the right Russian mili- 

 tary participants attend these meetings in order productively to 

 have a dialog that could lead to some specific proposals and to the 

 Russian Navy taking greater responsibility for environmental man- 

 agement of their submarine fleet. 



Next, the Department's Arctic Nuclear Waste Assessment Pro- 

 gram, called ANWAP, is a 3-year-old effort begun by Congress to 

 assess the nature and extent of nuclear waste in the Arctic region. 

 The Office of Naval Research, as you know, conducts this program 

 and Admiral Pelaez will address the program in detail during his 

 testimony today. 



So I will go now finally to the Murmansk initiative, which will 

 be addressed in greater detail by Dr. Hecht, but the Department 

 of Defense is a partner in that initiative. We have supported that 

 project financially with the Government of Norway and other Unit- 

 ed States agencies to upgrade an existing low-level radioactive 

 waste processing facility for use by the Russian northern fleet. 



Let me conclude with two thoughts, Mr. Chairman. First, the De- 

 partment of Defense views protection of the Arctic environment as 

 important to national security, and second, we must focus on posi- 

 tively influencing the Russian military's environmental manage- 

 ment. 



Thank you for the opportunity to provide the Department's per- 

 spective today. 



[The prepared statement of Ms. Goodman follows:] 



