DOE FY99 Nuke Budget Request

[marylia <marylia@igc.org>]

Nuclear Budget Up

by Marylia Kelley and Bob Schaeffer
from Tri-Valley CAREs' February 1998 newsletter, Citizen's Watch

Overall, the Dept. of Energy's (DOE) $18 billion budget request for Fiscal
Year 1999, unveiled by Energy Secretary Federico Pena on February 2, robs
legally-mandated environmental programs to fund radioactive pork.

The DOE's proposed budget is filled with dangerous weapons research
programs. For example, the so-called "Stockpile Stewardship and Management"
account rose from $4 billion to $4.5 billion. (The annual average for these
same nuclear weapons activities during the Cold War was $3.7 billion).

At the same time, a new DOE accounting structure masks the fact that many
environmental programs are level-funded for FY '99, and slated for cut back
in future years. In addition the budget contains millions for nuclear
reprocessing technologies, even though this activity is the major source of
DOE's radioactive and toxic wastes.

Locally, at Livermore Lab, the DOE budget request is up 14%-to $1.02
billion-of which $900 million is earmarked for defense projects. This
constitutes the largest weapons budget for the Lab in recent memory. Most
of the weapons increase is for the National Ignition Facility, whose budget
request rose (again) to $291 million for FY '99. This amount is $62
million more than NIF's current year funding, and accounts for one-half of
the Lab's projected $124 million increase. An additional $46 million of
that increase will be devoted to another part of the "Stockpile
Stewardship" program, called the Accelerated Strategic Computing
Initiative, or ASCI, to aid the weaponeers in modelling bomb explosions in
virtual reality.

On a brighter note, one comparatively modest, but still important, budget
success is that for the first time in several years the DOE is asking for a
small increase in cleanup funds for the Livermore Lab main site and site
300-up from the $19.8 million requested last year to $22.3 million for FY
'99.

Addendum: I see a microcosm of our whole current US nuclear situation in
the fact that the 117 world leaders and General Butler were unveiling their
abolition statement on the same day that DOE was unveiling its nuclear
budget. Can the contrast be more stark? Can our moral and political
imperative to act on behalf of the abolitionist cause be any more clear?
--MK