Bush Targets Russia Nuclear Programs for Cuts

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 18, 2001; Page A23

U.S. programs that pay to help Russia reduce and safeguard its nuclear weapons and materials have been targeted by the Bush administration for cuts of 12 percent below this year's level and 30 percent below the figures proposed in the Clinton administration's fiscal 2002 budget, according to congressional and nongovernmental sources.

Rose E. Gottemoeller, former director of nonproliferation and national security at the Energy Department, said she has been told that the $1.2 billion proposed by the previous administration for Russian programs had been reduced by President Bush's Office of Management and Budget to $800 million, which is $73 million below the current year's figure.

Gottemoeller, now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called the proposed budget cuts a "shame." A spokesman for Energy, Joe Davies, said Secretary Spencer Abraham "is still working on budget figures" and that no final number is expected until April.

Gottemoeller said the "Nuclear Cities" program, which this year provided $30 million to help former nuclear scientists get nonmilitary work, would be cut to $6 million.

The nuclear materials protection and security program, which helps pay for improved security over Russia's stockpiles of plutonium and enriched uranium, received $154 million this year. Under the Clinton budget, it would have risen to $217 million. Under Bush, it is set to drop to $139 million.

Energy's plutonium disposal program, in which the United States and Russia change weapons-grade material so it cannot be used for bombs, is set to rise from $200 million this year to $217 million under Bush. That is well below the $400 million proposed by the Clinton administration to enable construction of a facility to begin processing the nuclear materials.

Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that handles the Energy nonproliferation budget, said Friday that the Russian programs "don't deserve to be cut as much as they are thinking."

In the House, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), whose district includes Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which participates in the programs, said that "dramatic cuts to these programs . . . may cripple our efforts to secure nuclear material in Russia and ensure that Russia's nuclear physicists are gainfully employed in non-defense-related industries."

But sentiment appears to be growing in Congress to cut aid to Russia in response to Russian sales of weaponry and nuclear power plants to Iran. Last week, Rep. Joseph M. Hoeffel III (D-Pa.), a member of the House International Relations Committee, sent Bush a letter signed by a bipartisan group of 29 House members calling for a halt in Russian aid programs.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company