Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I came to the U.S. Senate in 1975. At that time, the nuclear debate was raging full blast. `Shall we or shall we not build more nuclear-electrical-generating plants?' I just finished 4 years as Governor of my State. And we had built two nuclear plants up on the Arkansas River. I believe the total cost of both of those plants was $400 million. It was represented to me at the time, as Governor, that that would be by far the cheapest power we would ever know anything about.

But after I came to the Senate and began to investigate the feasibility and the advisability of taking this country down the

nuclear path, I quickly came to the conclusion that I would resist any additional nuclear plants. There was another highlight on the front burner called the Clinch River breeder reactor to be built on the Clinch River down in Tennessee.

I remember in 1981, the Republicans took over this place, and Howard Baker, the Senator from Tennessee, and one of the finest men ever to serve in this body, became majority leader. I was trying to keep any additional nuclear plants from being licensed--and it was not a tough chore. A lot of people had made up their minds at that point that the nuclear option was not a good one. I fought for about 4 years to kill the Clinch River breeder.

But I was up against the majority leader. And as everybody here knows, as the old revenuer said, when they announced United States versus Jones, he turned to his lawyer and said, `Them don't sound like very fair odds to me.' And it was not very fair odds to go up against the majority leader on the Clinch River breeder, which was going to be built in his beloved Tennessee.

Howard Baker could always just pull out that one extra vote he needed. The vote was always close, but when you are majority leader, you know, you can just call somebody over and say, `I need your vote,' and you usually get it.

Finally, one year I was ahead by about six or seven votes as the votes were being cast, and I think Senator Baker decided that he was done for, and he turned everybody loose that had committed to him who did not really like the idea of the Clinch River breeder reactor and were only voting for it to accommodate him. He turned them loose, and I think we won that day by about 70 to 30. Happily, that was the end of the Clinch River breeder.

I had a group of people from France in my office this afternoon, some politicians and some deeply involved in the electrical industry. They wanted to talk about the new concept of restructuring the electricity industry in this country to go to retail competition. They are doing this in France. They are doing it in Germany and doing it all over Western Europe. And they wanted to talk to me about my bill.

One of them said, `Senator, we understand that you are the Senator who killed the breeder reactor.'

`Mais oui.'

He said, `If you had it to do over again, would you do it again?'

`You bet.'

France is heavily dependent on breeder reactors. But they are also in the business of reprocessing and using MOX to generate power, and so on. I guess I am digressing a little bit to say about the breeder reactor, it is dead, dead; and I am glad it is dead.

The reason I did not like the breeder reactor is the same reason I did not like nuclear power, period. It is wonderful. It is the cleanest power you can have. You see that nice, clear white smoke coming out of those smokestacks in Russellville, AR. And you know there is nothing polluting about that plant.

But if you look inside, if you look inside the plant and you see those fuel rods, you have to ask yourself, since these things are going to be radioactive for thousands of years, how do you dispose of them? That is the reason I turned against nuclear power. I could not figure out a way on Earth that we were going to environmentally, acceptably dispose of those fuel rods.