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Sen. Pete Domenici finds Democratic ally in effort to keeps nuclear labs going
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WASHINGTON — Sen. Pete Domenici, with help from a North Dakota Democrat that surprised the Albuquerque Republican, has drawn the lines for a three-way battle over the future of America's nuclear weapons and New Mexico's two weapons labs, Sandia and Los Alamos.
That Democrat, Byron Dorgan, and Domenici on June 26 unveiled an energy and water spending bill that the Senate Appropriations Committee is expected to approve on June 28.
While the full Senate may yet make some changes, it is likely that Dorgan and Domenici will head into negotiations with their House counterparts with a bill that not only would keep the labs' employment at current levels, but would map out a different plan for the nuclear weapons complex than proposed either by the Bush administration or the one approved in the House last week.
President Bush proposed modernizing the current nuclear weapons complex while planning to consolidate the complex in the future.
He has requested funding for a new weapon, known as the reliable replacement warhead, and for a chemical and metallurgic replacement facility at Los Alamos to support continued production of plutonium pits, the triggers of nuclear bombs.
Bush also wants advance funding for a new plutonium production center - with the location to be decided in the future - as part of a plan to consolidate by 2030 the 11 labs and plants now involved in nuclear weapons work.
But the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, led by Democrat Pete Visclosky and Republican Dave Hobson, wants a plan for reducing the nuclear weapons complex now.
They cut the weapons budget from $6.5 billion to $5.9 billion, slashing 37 programs, including the RRW, new facilities at Los Alamos, and programs and hardware to certify the reliability of the weapons stockpile, such as the "Z" accelerator at Sandia.
Los Alamos, and Sandia to a lesser extent, were hit with a particular "vindictiveness," suggested Domenici.
Los Alamos could lose as many as 2,000 workers and Sandia more than 900 under the House bill, according to some estimates.
But as the House appropriators made clear in the report accompanying the bill, they don't just want lab budgets cut. They want some labs closed, and they want to hold weapons funding hostage to force Bush to choose now.
Funding for RRW, says the House report, is "a possibility only as part of a major consolidation of the nuclear weapons complex with significant reductions in operating costs."
Dorgan and Domenici chose a third path - stay the course.
Their bill restores the weapons budget to $6.5 billion, and maintains funding for the stockpile stewardship programs at Sandia and Los Alamos and pit production at Los Alamos. It cuts all funding for a new plutonium production center and even the planning funds for the 2030 consolidation.
The RRW would be funded, but only for research. Before the next step, said Dorgan, Congress should "pause" and have a full debate on nuclear weapons strategy.
"We have questions facing this country with respect to the future of nuclear weapons," said Dorgan. "Our country has not yet made the decision: How many nuclear weapons do we want to have? What is our goal? What will be our future? What type and kind of nuclear weapons?"
No jobs would be lost at the labs under the Senate bill, Domenici told reporters.
"When you add it all up, they couldn't have come out better," said Domenici.
He admitted he had no such hopes a month ago. He praised Dorgan's "desire to learn." Dorgan visited the labs after taking over leadership of the subcommittee from Domenici this year.
"We were able to keep the programs going, and for that I'm very grateful because I think that's the fair way to do it, unless and until we change policy in this country," said Domenici. "For those who are wondering, unless and until we find a new nuclear weapons system or decide we're going out of the business of nuclear, we'll keep all the nukes we have."
Domenici said there could be a challenge to RRW funding on the Senate floor, but he expects the measure to head to a House-Senate conference committee largely intact.
"What will happen in conference? I have no way of knowing at this point," Domenici told reporters.
One argument that Visclosky and Hobson will marshal is that the House last week soundly rejected, 121-12, the effort by Rep. Tom Udall, a Santa Fe Democrat, to restore $190 million of the cuts.
"I don't think it helped," Domenici said of the vote. "I don't want to blame anyone. It was certainly good of the congressman to try. He tried hard. They decided not to go along with him."
Los Alamos also continues to be dogged by stories about security lapses.
The latest is a Newsweek report that a Los Alamos laptop was stolen from an employee's room while he was traveling in Ireland.
Department of Energy and lab officials said the employee's only violation was in not seeking permission to take the laptop with him. The laptop was not even capable of linking into the lab's classified computer system, said lab spokesman Kevin Roark.
