Despite my personal efforts, the 94th Congress adjourned without passing nuclear export legislation which would have strengthened our effectiveness in dealing with other nations on nuclear matters.

-In the absence of such legislation, I am directing the Secretary of State to work closely with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to insure proper emphasis on nonproliferation concerns in the nuclear export licensing process.

I will continue to work to develop bipartisan support in Congress for improvements in our nuclear export laws.

VII. Reprocessing Evaluation Program

The world community requires an aggressive program to build the international controls and cooperative regimes I have just outlined. I am prepared to mount such a program in the United States.

-I am directing the Administrator of ERDA to:

• Begin immediately to define a reprocessing and recycle evaluation program consistent with meeting our international objectives outlined earlier in this statement. This program should complement the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) ongoing considerations of safety safeguards and environmental requirements for reprocessing and recycling activities, particularly its Generic Environmental Statement on Mixed Oxide Fuels.

• Investigate the feasibility of recovering the energy value from used nuclear fuel without separating out plutonium.

-I am directing the Secretary of State to invite other nations to participate in designing and carrying out ERDA's reprocessing and recycle evaluation program, consistent with our international energy cooperation and nonproliferation objectives. I will direct that activities carried out in the United States in connection with this program be subjected to full IAEA safeguards and inspections.

VIII. Nuclear Waste Management

The area of our domestic nuclear program dealing with long-term management of nuclear wastes from our commercial nuclear powerplants has not in the past received sufficient attention. In my 1977 Budget, I proposed a four-fold increase in funding for this program, which involves the activities of several Federal agencies. We recently completed a review to determine what additional actions are needed to assure availability in the mid-1980's of a federally owned and managed repository for long-term nuclear wastes, well before significant quantities of wastes begin to accumulate.

I have been assured that the technology for long-term management or disposal of nuclear wastes is available but demonstrations are needed.

-I have directed the Administrator of ERDA to take the necessary action to speed up this program so as to demonstrate all components of waste management technology by 1978 and to demonstrate a complete repository for such wastes by 1985.

-I have further directed that the first demonstration depository for high-level wastes which will be owned by the Government be submitted for licensing by the independent NRC to assure its safety and acceptability to the public.

In view of the decisions announced today, I have also directed the Administrator of ERDA to assure that the waste repository will be able to handle spent fuel elements as well as the separated and solidified waste that would result if we proceed with nuclear fuel reprocessing.

The United States continues to provide world leadership in nuclear waste management. I am inviting other nations to participate in and learn from our programs.

-I am directing the Secretary of State to discuss with other nations. and the IAEA the possibility of establishing centrally located, multinationally controlled nuclear waste repositories so that the number of sites that are needed can be limited.

INCREASED USE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY IN THE UNITED STATES

Even with strong conservation efforts, energy demands in the United States will continue to increase in response to the needs of a growing economy. The only alternative over the next 15 to 20 years to increased use of both nuclear energy and coal is greater reliance on imported oil which will jeopardize our Nation's strength and welfare.

We now have in the United States 62 licensed nuclear plants, providing about 9 percent of our electrical energy. By 1985, we will have from 145 to 160 plants, supplying 20 percent or more of the Nation's electricity.

In many cases, electricity from nuclear plants is markedly cheaper than that produced from either oil or coal-fired plants. Nuclear energy is environmentally preferable in a number of respects to other principal ways of generating electricity.

Commercial nuclear power has an excellent safety record, with nearly 200 plant-years of experience (compiled over 18 chronological years) without a single death from a nuclear accident. I have acted to assure that this record is maintained in the years ahead. For example, I have increased funds for the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission and for the Energy Research and Development Administration for reactor safety research and development.

The decisions and actions I am announcing today will help overcome the uncertainties that have served to delay the expanded use of nuclear energy in the United States. While the decision to delay re

processing is significant, it will not prevent us from increasing our use of nuclear energy. We are on the right course with our nuclear power program in America. The changes I am announcing today will ensure that we continue.

My decisions today do not affect the U.S. program of research and development on the breeder reactor. That program assumes that no decision on the commercial operations of breeder reactors, which require plutonium fuel, will be made before 1986.

CONCLUSION

I do not underestimate the challenge represented in the creation of a worldwide program that will permit capturing the benefits of nuclear energy while maintaining needed protection against nuclear proliferation. The challenge is one that can be managed only partially and temporarily by technical measures.

It can be managed fully if the task is faced realistically by nations prepared to forego perceived short-term advantages in favor of fundamental long-term gains. We call upon all nations to recognize that their individual and collective interests are best served by internationally assured and safeguarded nuclear fuel supply, services, and storage. We ask them to turn aside from pursuing nuclear capabilities which are of doubtful economic value and have ominous implications for nuclear proliferation and instability in the world.

The growing international consensus against the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a source of encouragement. But it is certainly not a basis for complacency.

Success in meeting the challenge now before us depends on an extraordinary coordination of the policies of all nations toward the common good. The United States is prepared to lead, but we cannot succeed alone. If nations can work together constructively and cooperatively to manage our common nuclear problems, we will enhance our collective security. And we will be better able to concentrate our energies and our resources on the great tasks of construction rather than consume them in increasingly dangerous rivalry.

Statement by the United States Representative (Petree) to the First Committee of the General Assembly: Non-Use of Force in International Relations, October 29, 19761

The United States will abstain from voting on the draft resolution before us. We are concerned that the proposal by the Soviet Union for a treaty on the non-use of force could undermine the United Nations Charter, by needlessly duplicating it, by selecting certain provisions to endorse and omitting others or by adding new and disputed provisions. These are serious matters, in our view.

1 A/C.1/31/PV.19, p. 66.

It is curious that one of the strongest opponents of Charter review in general seems to have developed doubts as to the relevance and sufficiency of the Charter's basic provisions against the use of force and in favour of the peaceful settlement of disputes.

Even with these problems, the United States could have voted in favour of a study of the question of the need for or desirability of a new treaty, but what we cannot accept is the apparent attempt to prejudge the issue. The draft resolution determines, without any consultation or discussion of the very serious issues involved, that a treaty is needed and that all that remains to be done is to negotiate the content of that new treaty.

We described our position to the Soviet delegation and stated our willingness to join in an objective study of whether there is a need for such a treaty. We regret that there was no indication of flexibility on its part in this matter.

Statement by the Soviet Representative (Kuznetsov) to the First Committee of the General Assembly, November 1, 1976 1

The First Committee is now embarking upon a consideration of the most important and urgent problem of contemporary international relations: the problem of the cessation of the arms race and disarmament. The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mr. Brezhnev, in his statement at the plenary meeting of the Central Committee on 25 October this year stressed that in the struggle for lasting peace there is today no more important task than that of halting the arms race and embarking upon disarmament. The scale and significance of the questions of disarmament require a broad and comprehensive discussion of those questions and an active joint search for the mutually acceptable solutions which they have long awaited.

The position of the Soviet Union on questions of disarmament was clearly and distinctly set forth at this session of the General Assembly in the statement of the Foreign Minister of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Mr. Gromyko.3 The Soviet Union firmly and consistently believes that the arms race must be halted, that it must be reversed and that we must achieve a genuine breakthrough in disarmament

matters.

We attach primary importance to the preparation of concrete measures that would make it possible, in the final analysis, genuinely to move towards disarmament. The Soviet Union is ready to work together with other States in solving this problem and to display a constructive, businesslike approach. That is convincingly demonstrated by the Soviet memorandum on questions of ending the arms race and

disarmament, submitted for the consideration of this session of the General Assembly.*

The peoples of the world see in disarmament a reliable path to the strengthening of peace and international security. Now, when the world is witnessing an increase in arsenals and armouries, especially of atomic weapons, when every year hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on the preparation of death-dealing weapons, weapons of mass destruction-that is, the material basis of war-the cessation of the arms race and disarmament have become an imperative of the day, an important factor for peace and a pledge of the prevention of war.

We must not forget another important aspect of the matter. After all, the tremendous sums of money now being spent on military preparations could and must be devoted to the struggle against universal problems: backwardness, illiteracy, hunger, disease, environmental pollution, and many other problems connected with the raising of the standard of living and the material and cultural standards of peoples and with the economic development of States.

We must say that in recent years it has been possible to make some progress towards the curbing of the arms race and the reduction of the threat of war, primarily nuclear war. Treaties have been concluded designed to halt nuclear weapons testing and to stop the further proliferation of nuclear weapons and limit strategic armaments. All this rebuts assertions that the efforts in the field of disarmament are futile and even fruitless.

The Soviet Union has never shared and does not share this pessimism. Of course, disarmament is by no means an easy matter, but given goodwill and a serious attitude it is possible to achieve concrete results in restraining the military preparations of States. The most recent example is the draft convention on the prohibition of military or any other hostile environmental modification techniques submitted by the Committee on Disarmament to the General Assembly of the United Nations. This draft convention is the fruit of collective efforts and careful reflection on the views of the large number of States which took part in producing this document.

Approval by the General Assembly of this draft convention in its present form and the earliest possible opening of the convention for signature would be a new important step towards the limitation and slowing down of the arms race and would be in keeping with strengthening the security of peoples and the preservation of the human environment.

Of course, the Soviet Union realizes that what has been achieved in the field of disarmament is, despite its importance, but a beginning. We need new firm, collective efforts to move faster towards the attainment of our final goals. Here a broad field of activity has been opened up for all countries, large and small, developed and developing, nuclear

*Ante, pp. 631-641.

B Ante, pp. 577-588.