U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici said Sunday that a spending agreement regarding Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories should avoid additional worker layoffs at the New Mexico labs.
The plan would also eliminate a controversial weapons program called the Reliable Replacement Warhead and sets the number of plutonium pits manufactured at LANL to 80 a year.
Domenici was a negotiator in reaching an agreement of the FY2008 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill that reverses many spending cuts passed by the House, his office said Sunday in a news release.
The joint House-Senate conference committee, for example, restored $418 million of the nearly $600 million slashed by the House for weapons activities at the three nuclear weapons labs.
The agreement — which funds DOE, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Army Corps of Engineers and related agencies such as the National Nuclear Security Administration — is likely to be incorporated into a massive omnibus spending package that will include the 11 appropriations bills that have not been passed by Congress. The package could receive final House and Senate approval this week and then be sent to President Bush.
"This budget isn't by any means a bed of roses for the labs," Domenici said. "We have what amounts to a good news-bad news budget that is vastly preferable to the potentially devastating cuts that could have occurred."
This bill will not reverse current plans to lay off 500 to 750 workers at Los Alamos, but it should help to avoid additional and future layoffs, he said.
Gregg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group agrees that the consortium that manages the lab should be able to avoid further employee staff reductions, if it chooses.
But Mello said his watchdog group liked many of the reforms imposed on the lab in the House spending bill, and he's disappointed the measure heading to the president ignores some of those changes.
His group, as well as an independent panel of scientists, were opposed to the new Reliable Replacement Warhead program, and Mello called that "a bright spot" in the spending agreement.
He said the lab also will see more money for solar and renewable-energy work, which would offset cuts to bigger initiatives aimed at boosting nuclear energy.
Mello added that the money allocated to waste cleanup will not speed up cleanup of the contaminated areas around LANL.
Among the bill's highlights, according to Domenici:
- $181 million for GNEP, now known as the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, to make significant investment in critical nuclear research and development.
- $1.41 billion in increased funding because of moving the Pit Disassembly mission. Within this funding, LANL is expected to receive $193.6 million and Sandia is expected to receive $367 million.
- $215 million for plutonium pit manufacturing, a $66 million reduction. The committee eliminates all funding provided for the proposed Consolidated Plutonium Center, which would have been necessary for increased pit manufacturing.
- $153 million for environmental management and cleanup, a $17 million increase, for cleanup of LANL property. The House had recommended $139 million, while the Senate approved $222 million, Domenici said.
