David Skaggs: “This amendment would add a modest amount, $146 million, in order to partially correct a serious mistake in this bill.…”

“This amendment would add a modest amount, $146 million, in order to partially correct a serious mistake in this bill. That mistake is a reduction in funding for the Energy Department's environmental management program--the program to clean up the enormous mess at the various nuclear weapons facilities--a reduction of more than $740 million. In making that reduction, the committee's leadership was taking its lead from the authorizing committee, which cut the authorization for these programs in order to increase spending for missile defenses--the ``Star Wars'' programs--by a like amount. In this respect, the priorities in the defense authorization bill were exactly wrong. We shouldn't repeat the mistake. We need to clean up our room before we spend our allowance to buy new toys. Through its environmental management programs, the Energy Department carries out the work of cleaning up the Rocky Flats site in Colorado, and the other facilities where America developed and built the nuclear weapons that enabled us to win the cold war. The costs of this cleanup are part of the costs of that victory. They have to be paid.”