House Vote Imperils Los Alamos and Sandia Funding

Two leading U.S. nuclear research laboratories stand to lose significant federal funding in the next fiscal year after the House of Representatives voted Tuesday to slash nuclear weapons spending, the Albuquerque Journal reported (see GSN, June 21).

The fiscal 2008 House Energy and Water Appropriations Act would reduce the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons budget by 6 percent — $396 million — from this year’s levels.  The Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories in New Mexico are run by the department and would suffer from the cutback. 

While the Senate version of the bill would increase spending by $213 million, the leaner House version could mean 900 lost jobs at Sandia and more than that at Los Alamos, the Journal reported.  A House-Senate conference committee is expected to resolve the discrepancy.

New Mexico Republican Representatives Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce voted against the cutbacks.  Wilson’s district includes the Sandia facility and she has expressed concerns that the Senate would not produce an acceptable version before the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. 

Recent bills have smoothed over unfinished spending issues by lumping them into an omnibus package, Wilson said.  But “it’s a lot harder to fix things” in such a large bill, she added.

Representative Tom Udall (D-N.M.), who represents Los Alamos, supported the budget cuts (John Fleck, Albuquerque Journal, July 18).

Udall said he wanted to send a clear message with his vote, hoping to steer U.S. nuclear research funds away from military work and toward renewable energy programs, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported Tuesday.

The congressman “strongly believes that it is necessary to direct increased funding toward energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, as this bill does,” said a spokeswoman for Udall in a statement.  “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.”

Wilson said the legislation was 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 release, according to the New Mexican.

“This bill devastates the capability to certify that our nuclear weapons are safe, secure and reliable without testing,” she added.

Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) said he was also dismayed by the House vote.

“I am disappointed in the House-passed bill,” he said in a release.  “It 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” (Andy Lenderman, Santa Fe New Mexican, July 17).

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