GOP plan would pull plug on DOE

Friday, May 15, 1998 | 10:43 a.m.

A House Republican budget plan introduced Wednesday would eliminate the U.S. Department of Energy and would shift to other agencies the work at Yucca Mountain as a site to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste.

House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, crafted the proposal as part of a plan to trim $100 billion from the $1.7 trillion spending bill. In addition to the DOE, the Department of Commerce also would be eliminated.

The plan puts the GOP in direct conflict with President Clinton, a move many Republicans support as a good political strategy for the fall elections. Many of the ideas in the budget package would face a certain veto when they reach the president's desk. Late Wednesday Kasich met resistance from moderate House members.

Kasich is trying to put the proposal before the budget committee next week, although there was no specific language late Wednesday.

A DOE spokesperson said closing the agency down would not save enough money to impact the federal budget. "Congress has tried this many times before and it has been rejected," she said.

This is the third time Kasich has recommended eliminating the DOE. In previous attempts, the congressman put responsibility for choosing an interim radioactive waste storage site into the hands of the independent Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.

Once the NWTR board selects a waste site, the U.S. Geological Survey under the Interior Department would be responsible for temporary nuclear waste management. The Army Corps of Engineering would build a facility. Kasich has not submitted a site-specific request for such a storage facility.

The Defense Department would control the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and the multi-billion dollar cleanup of former atomic bomb production sites.

Congress has proposed storing high-level nuclear waste at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, until Yucca Mountain studies are completed for permanent burial after 2001.

The entire Nevada congressional delegation has fought nuclear industry efforts to pass a temporary nuclear waste storage bill this year. Sens. Richard Bryan and Harry Reid, both D-Nev., need 67 votes to uphold a promised veto by President Clinton. They claim they have the votes.

The nuclear industry has been working behind the scenes to convert at least one senator. Rumors that Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., would vote in favor of nuclear storage sent nuclear lobbyists scurrying to remove Colorado from the shipping corridor. No Senate staffer could either confirm or deny the deal.