Richardson Agrees to GOP Nuke Plan

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

Thursday July 8 6:34 PM ET 

Richardson Agrees to GOP Nuke Plan

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Chinese espionage and nuclear security flap 
could prompt the first major reorganization of the Energy Department 
since its inception 22 years ago.  

Republican senators welcomed reports Thursday that Energy Secretary 
Bill Richardson had agreed to accept a semiautonomous nuclear weapons 
agency within his department. Until this week he had strongly 
resisted such an agency.  

While there remained disagreement over some details, Richardson is 
ready to go along with ``the notion of a semiautonomous agency'' 
overseeing all nuclear weapons programs within the department, 
according to an Energy Department official who spoke on condition of 
anonymity.  

Department staff members met with congressional aides Thursday and 
were expected to continue negotiations next week to work out 
remaining differences in the proposed reorganization, the official 
said.  

Richardson could not be reached for comment Thursday.

``I'm ready to move on this,'' Richardson told The Washington Post, 
which first reported the energy secretary's willingness to accept the 
semiautonomous agency after weeks of resistance.  

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., one of three Republican senators who has 
argued that a largely independent agency was the only way to assure 
accountability within the weapons program, said Thursday he welcomed 
Richardson's apparent change of heart.  

Richardson and Republican senators have wrangled for weeks over how 
the department should be restructured in response to the political 
uproar over lax security at nuclear weapons labs and the alleged 
theft - mostly in the 1980s - of nuclear weapons secrets by China.  

Previously, Richardson has argued that his initiatives strengthening 
counterintelligence and security, including the naming of retired Air 
Force Gen. Eugene Habiger as ``security czar,'' was addressing the 
concerns.  

The proposed Agency for Nuclear Stewardship, although still in the 
department, would consolidate control over the three nuclear weapons 
labs - Sandia, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore - as well as the 
Nevada nuclear test site and various nuclear material production and 
assembly plants around the country.  

Domenici said in a telephone interview that he hoped to talk with 
Richardson shortly to get a better understanding of the secretary's 
position. Apparently he ``has seen that something very dramatic ought 
to happen'' to improve accountability within the weapons program. 
``He has come full circle and now its only a matter of details.''  

Domenici and two other Republican senators - Jon Kyl of Arizona and 
Frank Murkowski of Alaska - have argued for weeks for an agency that 
would fence off nuclear weapons programs within the Energy 
Department.  

They are expected to offer the proposal for full Senate action, 
possibly as early as next week when Congress returns from its recess. 
Democrats had threatened to block consideration of the measure, but 
with the administration trying to work out a bipartisan compromise, 
any attempt at a filibuster on the issue would be difficult to 
sustain.  

Domenici said that two Democratic senators - Bob Kerrey of Nebraska 
and Dianne Feinstein of California - had recently signed on to the 
measure as cosponsors.  

The proposed reorganization's prospects in the House were less 
certain. Some House Republicans would like to see the nuclear weapons 
programs removed from the Energy Department altogether, while others 
have expressed reservation about even a semiautonomous agency within 
the department.  

Congressional and Energy Department sources also said there remained 
disagreement between the Senate Republicans and Richardson on how 
independent such a new agency should be within the department.  

Richardson wants a clear understanding that the energy secretary will 
continue to have broad authority over the agency director, who will 
be given undersecretary status, and that the new agency will remain 
accountable to department-wide counterintelligence and security 
offices.  

But the Republican senators have insisted that the new agency have 
its own security and counterintelligence offices with minimal 
interference from other parts of the department.  

``When you create a semiautonomous agency you put everything 
necessary to run the agency within the agency'' including security 
and counterintelligence functions, said Domenici. He said while the 
secretary would remain ``in charge'' the new agency should not be 
``infringed upon'' by other parts of the department.

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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