Department of Energy Hearings Underway
Federico Pena continues to await his confirmation as the next Secretary of Energy. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was scheduled to vote on his nomination on February 26, with the full Senate to vote after that. Reports indicate that this vote was delayed, in part, because of an impasse between Senator Frank Murkowski (R-AK) and the administration over nuclear waste storage. In anticipation of Senate approval, Pena appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 5 to share his views on DOE’s national security mission.
Pena was well-briefed and prepared for the hearing. In his opening statement, he emphasized the importance of DOE’s defense role: two-thirds of the department’s budget and nearly 60 percent of its human resources are focused on that mission. Much of the questioning revolved around the responsibility of the Energy Secretary (along with the Secretary of Defense) to certify the safety of the nuclear stockpile. Committee members, while courteous and generally supportive of Pena’s nomination, pressed him for assurance that, with the cessation of underground nuclear testing, the stockpile could be determined to be safe and reliable. They also questioned whether resumption of testing, if deemed necessary, would be considered as an option. “I can think of no more serious responsibility,” Pena said, “than certifying to the President on an annual basis the safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile. If at any time this certification cannot be made, I would advise the President promptly and bring to his attention the full range of options that might be needed.” Pena stated that he had been assured the scientific capability exists to make such a certification to the President, but that he had no personal bias against resumption of testing if determined necessary. Although the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty had been signed by the President, he said, it had not yet been ratified by Congress and therefore DOE was not legally constrained to abide by it.
Maintenance of the stockpile was the first of Pena’s four defense priorities; the others were ensuring an adequate supply of tritium, pursuing international non-proliferation and weapons dismantlement efforts, and the clean-up of nuclear weapons sites and disposal of nuclear waste. Questioned about the department’s responsibility for environmental clean-up at old weapons facilities, Pena noted that his previous experience as mayor of Denver, near DOE’s Rocky Flats site, made him “particularly sensitive” to local concerns. He reported that DOE’s clean-up effort has become much more effective in the last four years, and better cooperation exists with state and local officials and citizens.
DOE was the focus of another hearing on February 11, by the House Energy and Power Subcommittee. This time Acting Energy Secretary Charles Curtis sat in the witness chair as subcommittee members questioned various aspects of the DOE FY 1998 budget request. The $19.2 billion total comprises $16.6 billion for core programs, $1.6 billion to fully fund some construction projects, and $1.0 billion for an initiative to encourage private-sector clean-up efforts at weapons sites. Subcommittee chair Dan Schaefer (R-CO) supported the multi-year construction funding as a “much-needed reform,” but questioned the expansion in funding for the privatization initiative. He also remarked that there would be “lots of costs involved” in the decision to replace underground nuclear testing with science-based stockpile stewardship. As part of that policy, the budget request includes over $800 million for full construction funding for the National Ignition Facility (NIF), to be built at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).
Rep. Rick White (R-WA) questioned why the department was asking for an increase of “four or five times the pace of inflation.” Curtis explained that the request for the core programs was only an increase of 2.7 percent, while the up-front construction funding and the privatization initiative would mainly involve outlays in future years. As far as DOE’s core missions, Curtis stated, “We owe a duty to future generations to balance the budget...but we also owe a duty to foster the capacity to shape the future through science and technology.” The S&T areas would receive $2,537 million in the FY 1998 request, which would include design of a National Spallation Source, funding to participate in Europe’s Large Hadron Collider through 2004, and $40 million for up-front construction funding.
In response to a question by Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA), Curtis reported that the U.S. would contribute over $50 million this year to the engineering design of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER.) When asked whether building it on U.S. soil was a viable option, Curtis estimated construction costs at more than $10 billion and a comparable amount for operations. “I don’t think we can afford it,” he concluded.
Other concerns raised by subcommittee members included DOE’s plan to sell off part of its Strategic Petroleum Reserve early in the next century, and the department’s inability to provide storage for waste from production of nuclear weapons or nuclear energy. Curtis testified that the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for transuranic waste would be ready to begin taking waste shipments as soon as it receives an EPA compliance report, expected by the end of 1997 or early in 1998. However, he said the Yucca Mountain facility was still undergoing a viability assessment, and the department would not be able to deliver on its contractual obligations to begin receiving commercial waste in 1998.
Hearings on DOE’s FY 1998 budget request by the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, chaired by Pennsylvania Republican Joseph McDade, are scheduled to begin on March 11.
