Lawmaker Seeks End to Energy Dept.

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Monday June 7 1:20 AM ET 

Lawmaker Seeks End to Energy Dept.

WASHINGTON (AP) - He's been trying to abolish the Energy Department 
for years, but a conservative Republican congressman from Kansas is 
attracting greater attention for his proposal amid allegations of 
nuclear spying by China.  

Rep. Todd Tiahrt's idea is catching on following a special House 
committee report alleging that China stole America's nuclear weapons 
secrets from DOE laboratories. In fact, the panel's chairman, Rep. 
Christopher Cox, R-Calif., is a cosponsor of Tiahrt's legislation.  

The report alleged that Beijing stole classified information about 
every currently deployed nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal. Cox said 
last week it was ``exceptionally likely'' that Chinese spying 
continues.  

Dismantling DOE has been an aim of Tiahrt since he rode to Congress 
in the 1994 election wave that swept Republicans into control of the 
House.  

Then, Tiahrt and his allies were calling the department wasteful and 
ineffective. Today, they say those problems have blossomed into a 
national security nightmare.  

``When you have a lack of management skills and no accountability - 
like a lack of character - sooner or later, it shows up,'' Tiahrt 
said in an interview last week. He pointed to various studies by the 
General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, that detailed 
years of mismanagement.  

``Now it's showing up in the loss of our nation's most sacred defense 
secrets,'' he said.  

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says he has taken dramatic steps to 
tighten security and that the Cox committee report does not reflect 
counterintelligence and security improvements made this year.  

But Tiahrt pointed to assertions that espionage continues, calling 
those improvements ``like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping head wound; 
they're not stopping the flow.''  

Tiahrt's 1994 upset of longtime Democratic Rep. Dan Glickman was 
largely due to enthusiastic support from anti-abortion activists in 
his Wichita district. Glickman went on to become agriculture 
secretary.  

Tiahrt's earliest and most avid support came from religious 
conservatives, but he has used a seat on the powerful Appropriations 
Committee to carve out a role not only as a fiscal conservative, but 
as a consensus builder who forges strong relationships with moderates 
back home and on Capitol Hill.  

``I'm not afraid of the debate, but we are a government of 
consensus,'' he said. ``I like to find things we can move forward on, 
rather than the things which hold us back.''  

Tiahrt's blueprint for dismantling the Energy Department, also 
sponsored by Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn., would sell off some of DOE's 
projects to private industry and transfer other functions to various 
federal agencies, with the nuclear weapons complex shifting to the 
Defense Department.  

Outside estimates by such think tanks as the libertarian Cato 
Institute estimate that such a move would save taxpayers $20 billion 
annually over the next five years.  

Tiahrt's fellow Kansan, Republican Rep. Jim Ryun, wants to halt 
visits to the labs by scientists from security-sensitive countries. 
Tiahrt supports that but says it can't completely stop the flow of 
secrets.  

He acknowledged that in view of White House veto threats, it's 
questionable Congress would send legislation to President Clinton 
that would abolish the Energy Department.  

It's more likely that lawmakers would attempt to bring the labs under 
the Pentagon's wing, Tiahrt said.

Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -
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