That means a rumored showdown in the Senate Appropriations Committee this week over the Bush administration's request to continue studies on modifying existing warheads into burrowing "bunker buster" bombs isn't likely to happen.
Instead, the chairman of the Senate subcommittee that holds the purse strings on nuclear programs, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., is advocating passage of a long-term continuing resolution. Such a measure would keep spending for Department of Energy programs at existing levels through the new fiscal year.
Anti-nuclear organizations had been urging supporters to lobby subcommittee members, including Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, to strip funding for weapons research. The groups fear studies will ultimately lead to test firings in Nevada.
The Bush administration's request for $27 million to study the "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator" and $9 million to study advanced nuclear weapons concepts was deleted from the House version of the energy spending bill in September. All three of Utah's House members voted in favor of the cuts.
If the nuclear weapons funding is included in a continuing resolution, it is expected to pass both the House and Senate with support of majority Republicans. However, 2nd District Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, has previously voted against continuing resolutions that include the weapons study funds and his spokeswoman said Wednesday that he would probably oppose such an approach.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham have pressured Senate leaders to restore the money cut by the House, along with hikes in the Nevada Test Site's budget to shorten the time it would take to prepare for a resumption of underground testing. Although such tests are currently banned under a moratorium, the Bush administration wants greater flexibility to verify that aging nuclear weapons are still operational.
Domenici's decision not to press ahead with a Senate energy bill indicates that deadlocked negotiations with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., over future funding of the Yucca repository have been abandoned for this year.
"I'm willing to work with him on the funding for Yucca Mountain," Reid said. "I would rather we did not do a continuing resolution. I would rather that we were able to come up with some meaningful legislation."
The Capitol Hill newspaper Congressional Quarterly reported that any potential deal sank when the White House asked that the Senate bill allow using a nuclear utility industry trust fund to help pay for Yucca's completion. The White House also reportedly supported a rider authorizing Congress to dictate safety standards for the project.
The latter provision would circumvent a federal appeals court ruling earlier this year that found the Environmental Protection Agency standards used to design the repository did not adequately address safety concerns over the hundreds of thousands of years the waste would remain toxic. Some lawmakers have said the court-ordered standards are virtually impossible to meet and could doom Yucca Mountain's completion.
