Stalemate

“Stalemate” is the best word to describe attempts to reorganize the national weapons laboratories. Both the House and Senate went into overdrive last week in what seemed to be a never-ending round of hearings on the labs. About all that can be said with any certainty is that Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) will try to force a Senate floor vote on reorganization legislation in the early part of this week. It would be a mistake to think that this Senate vote is going to represent a solution, as the House of Representatives has very different ideas about how the labs should be run.

One of the more intractable aspects of this issue is disagreement about what the Senate legislation would do. At a July 16 hearing, Senators Frank Murkowski (R-AK) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) engaged in a “yes-it-does-no-it-doesn’t” dialogue about who at DOE would be in charge of the nuclear weapons program. Murkowski said he was hopeful that wordsmiths could find clarifying language, but it is probably more control than clarity that is at issue. Bingaman summed it up best when he told Murkowski, “The amendment you have here is internally inconsistent.”

It would be difficult to find someone who does not believe that DOE’s management should be reformed. Everyone talks about how vital accountability and responsibility are in the nuclear weapons program, and how little there seems to be of each in the current organization. All appreciate the important interface between weapons and civilian research. Yet, no one has devised a politically-acceptable solution that will safeguard weapons knowledge while allowing for appropriate scientific exchange.

Inability to reach closure does not mean inaction. At Friday’s hearing, Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) warned that said if a way cannot be found to reform DOE, he would “support taking it [the weapons program] outside the Department of Energy.” He wants action, saying that he does not want a congressional committee to spend six months studying this issue.

Burton Richter, Director of SLAC, appeared at the Friday hearing, and said that while he supports the general goal of a reorganized department, he fears that resulting barriers between weapons and civilian research could be impenetrable. Richter illustrated the need for interface when he described a a contribution made by Los Alamos to SLAC’s B Factory. He told the senators that stockpile stewardship, a difficult program under any circumstance, would be damaged by a lack of interface. “The whole is worth more than the sum of its parts,” Richter said of DOE and its many programs. About the Senate’s reorganization proposal, he told the senators, “This goes too far.” “If it were up to me, I would slow down a bit,” he said.

Slowing it down is also what six key congressmen (Tom Bliley (R- VA), John Dingell (D-MI), Joe Barton (R-TX), Ralph Hall (D-TX), Ken Calvert (R-CA) and Jerry Costello (D-IL)) proposed in a July 12 letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). They wrote, “neither the Defense nor Intelligence bill is an appropriate vehicle for legislating the kinds of comprehensive structural and cultural reforms at DOE that are so obviously necessary.” "...we agree that we should not compound current problems by enacting an ill-conceived and ill-considered ‘quick fix,’” they concluded.

These congressmen held a joint Commerce Committee/Science Committee hearing on July 13. To appreciate how much the House and Senate differ, consider what Barton said at this hearing of the Senate semi-autonomous agency plan: “It is a mystery to me why anyone would think that would result in enhanced security.” He then said twice, for emphasis, “I believe the time has come to dismantle the Department of Energy.” Or Calvert, describing DOE: "...truly an agency that has lost its way.” Or Dingell: “the same bureaucrats...who have resisted efforts...would be running the agency with the same incompetencies. [It] makes new problems, and compounds old ones.” The former director of security for DOE, George McFadden, one of the hearing’s witnesses, called it a step backward, and voiced support for Energy Secretary Richardson’s plan to keep the weapons program an integral part of DOE. On the other side was William Happer, former director of the Office of Energy Research, who said that a semi-autonomous agency was “worth trying.” Don Kettl, a political scientist from the University of Wisconsin, said that the re-engineering of DOE could make the problem worse, while Maureen Eldredge of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability warned that “the cure ...[was] worse than the disease.” When asked if the proposal would work, the GAO’s Victor Rezendes replied, “No, we don’t see that,” although he later said it would impose some accountability.

While there are a multitude of bills and proposals, the conventional wisdom indicates that any reform will likely go through the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Floyd Spence (R-SC) also had a hearing last week. “My bottom line is that fundamental change is necessary and overdue,” he said. Victor Reis, former Assistant Secretary for defense programs testified at this hearing (also appearing at the Senate hearing described at the outset of this FYI.) Reis supports the semi-autonomous agency proposal, citing the success of NASA, CIA, FBI, NOAA, and DARPA. Regarding Secretary Richardson’s new security czar, Reis said that it “is an admission of failure...we don’t do czars well in this country...it is an Un-American name for an Un-American position.”

A July 8 Washington Post article said that Secretary Richardson had agreed to the Senate semi-autonomous agency proposal, although not a word was mentioned about this apparent shift in his position at any of the hearings last week. The House and Senate Armed Services Committees are conferencing about what should be done. The House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee has recommended that about $1 billion of DOE’s approximately $18 billion budget be withheld pending reorganization. Despite all of this, Rep. Barton said it best: “The truth is, no one knows exactly what to do.”