Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today said he’s pleased that President Obama’s first Department of Energy budget increases funding for nuclear nonproliferation and energy work performed at Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories. Bingaman is chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which has principal responsibility for the DOE.

“This budget proposal is an improvement over the last budget submitted by the previous administration in a number of ways,” Bingaman said. “It points towards some important new directions for the laboratories, particularly in nonproliferation work and energy missions.” 

Year-to-year comparisons of the new budget proposal to the budget levels in FY 2009 are complicated by the large, one-time bump up of funding for the labs contained in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and other competitive grant funding announced in recent weeks. (Combined from those two sources, the labs have been awarded $223 million, while the Waste Isolation Pilot Project received $172 million.)

Compared to funding levels in FY 2008, the new budget request would increase total DOE spending by 7.9 percent, or about $28.3 billion.

The president’s budget request would result in about $4 billion of spending from all DOE programs in New Mexico in FY 2010, down from the $4.3 billion voted by Congress for the comparable DOE programs in New Mexico in FY 2009. This includes a decline in spending at Los Alamos National Laboratory from $1.885 billion in this fiscal year to $1.741 billion in the new budget request from the president. The total for Sandia National Laboratories would grow slightly, from $1.322 billion to $1.343 billion.

Under the president’s plan, Sandia’s facilities accounts took a major cut, which accounted for most of the decrease in its weapons activities budget.  A similar pattern was seen at Los Alamos.  But it is important to note that the “nuclear posture review” is underway, so the president did not have the benefit of the report as he developed his budget. A portion of the review was released yesterday, and Bingaman said Congress will have an opportunity to make needed adjustments to programs based on that report.

“The ongoing review of our nuclear posture makes it difficult to set necessary funding levels for some important infrastructure projects for the weapons programs,” Bingaman said. “However, Congress can use the recommendations unveiled this week to set appropriate levels of facilities funding.”

But Bingaman said he was very concerned that the president’s budget zeroed out funding for upgrades at Los Alamos Science Neutron Center, which is a one-of-a-kind tool used for weapons diagnostics. That upgrade -- slated to cost a total of $100 million -- received $19 million in FY 2009. 

“I am deeply disappointed in the decision not to fund upgrades Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. LANSCE is not only essential to our stockpile stewardship program, it is also a center for key scientific research. I believe LANSCE will play a major role in the diversification of Los Alamos into new science areas, which is why I will fight to reverse this wrong-headed decision,” Bingaman said. 

There are some notable differences in the new budget, compared with the last budget proposal of the Bush Administration. Last year, at both Los Alamos and Sandia, President Bush proposed cuts for nuclear nonproliferation and verification research and development. Bingaman strongly decried those proposed cuts at the time. This year, President Obama is proposing an approximate 25 percent increase in nuclear nonproliferation programs both at Los Alamos and at Sandia. 

“This is a welcome increase, given the concerns about nuclear weapons development in countries like Iran and North Korea. I never understood why these programs were singled out for cuts last year,” Bingaman said.

While DOE’s Office of Science budgets for the labs remained relatively flat, some areas will see an increase.  Under the president’s proposal, Sandia would see an increase in work it is doing on electricity reliability research and development (more than tripling to a requested level of nearly $32 million), and energy efficiency and renewable energy programs (growing by over 25 percent to nearly $60 million). LANL did not see that level of increase in its civilian programs. Instead, it remained flat in nuclear energy R&D and its small program in energy efficiency and renewable energy R&D was hurt by the cancellation of further work on hydrogen technology. 

Below are a few highlights from the president’s budget proposal as compared to recent years. Please note it does not include American Recovery and Reinvestment funding for the labs that has recently been released.