ZPEnergy.com - Energy Department budget trims labs' funds

By Betsy Mason
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

The Department of Energy's budget request for 2006 may be slimmer overall than last year, but the proposed funds for nuclear weapons and nuclear nonproliferation efforts are up.

Money requested for environmental cleanup, however, is less than for 2005, according to budget request numbers released Monday.

The total DOE budget request for fiscal year 2006 is $23.4 billion, 2 percent less than the amount appropriated by Congress for 2005. Within the DOE, the National Nuclear Security Administration's budget would expand 2.5 percent, to $9.4 billion, while the request for Energy Science and Environment is down 4 percent, to $13.3 billion.

In a budget presentation Monday, President Bush's new energy secretary, Samuel Bodman, said the budget "required a lot of tough decisions and a lot of tradeoffs."

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's overall Department of Energy budget request for 2006 is down $103 million from 2005, to $1.07 billion.

Funding requested for the National Ignition Facility, Livermore's multibillion-dollar project to build the world's largest laser -- and eliminate the need for underground nuclear tests -- is up overall. But while it includes a 10 percent raise in construction money to $141 million, it also proposes a 12 percent cut for NIF's scientific research and support, to $43 million.

Another Livermore project, the robust nuclear earth penetrator or "bunker-buster" bomb designed to hit deeply buried targets, is back on the budget request to the tune of $4.5 million. An additional $4 million is allotted for the project from the Department of Defense. Sandia and Los Alamos national labs have been a part of this project as well.

"That's a waste of money on a weapon commanders in the field have not asked for, is of highly questionable utility, and may trigger a new global nuclear arms race," Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, said in a statement Monday.

The Defense Department's $4 million for the bunker buster "is the administration's attempt to do an end-run around the Energy and Water Appropriations Committee" that oversees the energy budget, said Marylia Kelley, executive director of Livermore-based nuclear watchdog group Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment.

The budget request for weapons activities for the entire DOE is up 0.7 percent, to $6.6 billion.

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