House, Senate split on funds for nuclear weapons plant

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, July 17, 2003 | 8:41 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A distinct split between Senate and House funding levels for a proposed nuclear weapon trigger factory became apparent Wednesday, just as the Energy Department held its last public hearing on the project's draft environmental impact statement.

The Nevada Test Site is one of five sites under consideration for the plant.

A Senate Appropriations subcommittee approved close to $23 million Wednesday for the project, satisfying DOE's request, but the House Appropriations Committee bill approved Tuesday slashed the account to about $11 million, saying DOE needs to "take a less aggressive planning approach for a new multibillion-dollar facility."

The House committee called the Energy Department's plans to choose a facility design and location "premature" without a detailed study on how many new triggers the existing nuclear weapons stockpile will need and advised the National Nuclear Security Administration, an arm of DOE, to look at ways to use the existing Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to make new weapon triggers, or "plutonium pits."

The Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and Los Alamos are two of the five sites now under consideration for the new pit plant, along with Carlsbad, N.M., the Pantex Site in Texas and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The new facility is set to cost $2 billion to $4 billion, with production starting in 2018.

Gov. Kenny Guinn sent a statement against the site to a public comment period in Las Vegas earlier this month saying it lacks the necessary infrastructure and that combined radiation effects from the proposed Yucca Mountain spent nuclear fuel storage site and the new pit plant have not been evaluated.

DOE supports having a new production facility, since it believes existing pits in nuclear weapons may deteriorate by the time the site would be operational, but has not indicated a preferred location yet.

Wednesday's hearing marked the last of six hearings on the project's draft environmental impact statement.

Jerry Freedman, DOE's director of the Pit Project Office, explained that the public comment period for the draft environmental impact statement ends Aug. 5, after which DOE will evaluate and continue to collect information. By March 2004, DOE will decide whether to move forward with the facility and its location in the final environmental impact statement.