The remainder of the funds are for clean-up work, fuel handling, shipment of the spent fuel to the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant, and to complete some minor remaining documentation of the defueling process and end-of-life core tests. Question: Under your budget proposal are any activities planned for FY 88 and beyond? Answer: No civilian nuclear energy work is planned by Naval Reactors following completion of the Water Cooled Breeder effort at the end of FY 1987. ATOMIC ENERGY DEFENSE ACTIVITIES STATEMENT OF SYLVESTER J. FOLEY, JR., ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF ENERGY FOR DEFENSE PROGRAMS ACCOMPANIED BY: BRIG. GEN. SIDNEY DAVIS, U.S. ARMY, ACTING ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY FOR DEFENSE (ATOMIC ENERGY) LT. GEN. JAMES A. ABRAHAMSON, U.S. AIR FORCE, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE ORGANIZATION Chairman HATFIELD. We will invite the panel now to come to the table. Again, Admiral Foley, Assistant Secretary of Energy for Defense Programs, Brigadier General Davis, and Lt. Gen. Abrahamson, Gentlemen, we have your written statements and they will be placed in the record. You may proceed as you wish. FISCAL YEAR 1987 BUDGET REQUEST Mr. FOLEY. Thank you, sir. First of all, I am very pleased to be here. It is my first appearance before you. I have only been in the job a little over 4 months now. The defense appropriations request that we have before you, of about $8.2 billion, includes $600 million for Admiral McKee as he covered in his testimony to you. I am responsible to Secretary Herrington and the Department of Energy for nuclear weapons research, design and testing, weapons production for nuclear materials, nuclear defense waste, and security and safeguards. I thought I would address a few viewgraphs here, talk to those, give you my impression and feelings about things as I have seen them in these 4 months in the job, and then respond to any questions that you may have. DEFENSE PROGRAMS MISSION FY 87 APPROPRIATIONS REQUEST • SUPPORT STOCKPILE MEMORANDUM • SUPPORT PRESIDENT'S SDI PROGRAM • ASSURE AVAILABILITY OF NUC MATERIALS -NEAR TERM -LONG TERM • CONTINUE VIGOROUS AND BALANCED RD&T PROGRAM DEFENSE PROGRAM PRIORITIES Mr. FOLEY. Fundamentally, the budget request we have asked for is prioritized first in support of the President's stockpile memorandum. Our No. 1 research and development program within the Department of Energy is to support the SDI Program. We have to ensure the availability of the nuclear materials, not just for the near term but also the longer term, so that we can meet whatever requirements that come up in that timeframe. We have a very vigorous R&D program, and in this particular case we have all the laboratory directors lined up in agreement that we just cannot reduce our technical base or our R&D program any further now. We have taken money from that for other things in the past and it just can't go down any further. DEFENSE PROGRAMS MISSION FY 87 APPROPRIATIONS REQUEST (Continued) • CONTINUE SAFE MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE • ACCOMMODATE REQUIREMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY • COMPLY WITH ES&H LAWS AND REGS • RESTORE, REVITALIZE, AND MAINTAIN DOE FACILITIES Mr. FOLEY. The safe management of radioactive waste is a growing concern to us, not only the high-level but the transuranic and low-level waste. We are getting environmental pressures, of course, across the country and we are committed to effectively managing them. Secretary Herrington has established a new position of assistant secretary for environment, safety, and health. He is committed to getting our arms around these environmental problems and cleaning up some of the problems of the past. In the security and safeguards area, we have to be sure, even more so now in this time of terrorism, that what we have out there is safe, it is secure, and that the guard force we have is, in fact, trained professionals up to stringent standards which could meet any challenge that might come along. I mentioned the environmental, safety, and health laws and regulations. When we first started out in this business years and years ago, there weren't many laws and regulations. There are now. It is an escalating curve. We are committed to meeting all the requirements of RCRA, CERCLA, the State requirements-all of these as we go along. Restore, revitalize, and maintain the DOE facilities-I must tell you here that in the 4 months that I have been in the job, I have had a chance to get around to most of the facilities and I have gotten to the three principal DOE laboratories. I come away with the impression that this entire production complex is very fragile. It is old. There is very little redundancy. There aren't many work-around alternatives. It is tech nology of a past year. The most recent production facility we have was built in the 1950's. Money has got to be put into these facilities to make them more robust. I must admit I was startled when I visited them and came away with that impression. I thought we had a much more vibrant program than we do. Back in about 1980, money started going into revitalization and restoration and we have to keep doing that, because none of this can be waived. FY 1987 BUDGET REQUEST Mr. FOLEY. Now how do we aggregate this $7.6 billion request-$4.6 billion is for our total weapons activities. You will notice that there is a growth in it from 1986 to 1987, most of which is in SDI. We have General Abrahamson here who can respond to the specific questions on SDI. I asked him to come on over because of our commitment to the milestones that he has, requirements that he has, and the necessity to get on with that sort of research and development. Materials production, there is an increase in here. This is to meet the stockpile memorandum requirements. Defense waste and byproducts, there is $700 million going into that. That is a lot of money. It is very necessary. I regard this as part of our environmental program, also. When we take $700 million here and a cross-cut of all the environmental programs that we have, it is about $500 million. We are talking over $1 billion now, about $1.2 billion across the board that is going into environmental aspects of our program. Verification and control, about $100 million. Could they use a little bit more here? Probably. But any time you ask a lab director if he could use some more money, the answer is going to be, "Yes," he could use some more money. But in order of priorities and a careful look at it, it looks like about $100 million, in our judgment, the appropriate level. Security and safeguards, a minor increase for the physical installation and the upgrading across the board of all of our Government facilities. I must tell you that I find them equal to, or in some cases better, than those that I have seen in various ammunition depots while I was in the military. Security investigations, about the same amount of money. We have cleaned up much of the backlog we had in security investigations. We are getting on with that. We should have fewer to do in the future. Part of that reason is because we drew down some of the total number of people that we have. DEFENSE PROGRAMS FY 87 APPROPRIATIONS REQUEST IMPACT OF GRAMM-RUDMAN-HOLLINGS: • ADJUSTED WPNS PRODUCTION SCHEDULES • REDUCED PRODUCTION SUPPORT AND CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITIES • REDUCED WPNS R&D TECHNOLOGY BASE AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS • ADJUSTED NUCLEAR MATERIALS PRODUCTION DELAYED WASTE TREATMENT FACILITIES AND TRANSFER • MINIMIZED IMPACT ON SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS IMPACT OF GRAMM-RUDMAN REDUCTIONS Mr. FOLEY. As we move into 1987, we, of course, had to consider the impact of Gramm-Rudman. What does that do to us? Well, it took about $350 million out of our fiscal year 1986 appropriation. We are well along in the fiscal year 1986 program. The initial request that we made was cut $400 million by Congress, plus the $350 million results in an overall reduction of about 10 percent. That is a pretty tough reduction in what we considered to be a lean budget. We adjusted the weapons production schedules, not willy-nilly, but together with the Department of Defense we sat down and said, "Can we make any adjustments here?" The answer is, "Yes." There were some adjustments made so that our requirements were a little bit lower. So within weapons production, we laid off probably about 1,000 people overall. About 2,000 went away, but some of that was retirement. We didn't hire some people, but we laid off a little better than 1,000 people. |