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Udall backs measure cutting lab funds for nuclear work

Associated Press
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

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Rep. Tom Udall, saying New Mexico's two federal labs must focus more on energy research, has voted in favor of a bill that makes sharp cuts in the budgets of Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories.

Udall, a Santa Fe Democrat, said this year's appropriations process should "serve as a strong signal" to the National Nuclear Security Administration and lab managers that work "must be diversified to meet current and emerging national security threats."

The House Energy and Water Appropriations Act, approved 312-111 on July 17, would cut about $400 million from Los Alamos and Sandia compared to the current fiscal year, Udall's office said.

The House-passed version is not final, however. A conference committee eventually will work out differences between the House and Senate measures. A Senate committee has moved to restore the funds cut from the labs.

Udall "strongly believes that it is necessary to direct increased funding toward energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, as this bill does," his spokeswoman said. "Congressman Udall voted for this bill because all of our national laboratories should be conducting critical energy research and science programs to address national security challenges."

The measure also rejects the Bush administration's plans to develop a new, sturdier nuclear warhead. Opponents of the Reliable Replacement Warhead say it would send the wrong signal to the world on nuclear nonproliferation and should not be pursued before the development of a comprehensive strategy on future nuclear weapons needs.

Republican Reps. Heather Wilson of Albuquerque and Steve Pearce of Hobbs voted against the measure.

Wilson called the vote a "radical shift in U.S. nuclear policy."

"The decisions embedded in this legislation will lead us either to return to nuclear testing, or to abandon nuclear deterrence because we will stop maintaining the stockpile," she said in a news release. "This bill devastates the capability to certify that our nuclear weapons are safe, secure and reliable without testing."

Udall last month unsuccessfully sought to amend the bill to move $192 million from the NNSA budget to three Los Alamos programs dedicated to monitoring the nuclear weapons stockpile, one of the lab's primary functions. He argued the cuts jeopardized the lab's core mission and prevented it from doing other research that could benefit the country in other ways.

Other lawmakers shot down his amendment, arguing that Los Alamos has the highest overhead and the largest number of employees receiving the highest pay among Energy Department labs, yet it has a long history of security and safety violations.

Jay Coghlan, head of the anti-nuclear group Nuclear Watch New Mexico, praised Udall's vote on the House measure. Coghlan said his group hopes "that we all can get really serious about changing missions at Los Alamos."

Sen. Pete Domenici, an Albuquerque Republican, was disappointed in the House bill, which he said "represents a serious challenge to our laboratories' efforts to keep Americans safe without going back to underground nuclear testing, and reverses so many scientific gains of the past 20 years."

The Senate version preserves money for labs' core responsibilities, including monitoring the nuclear weapons stockpile, he has said.