John Danforth: “the purpose of this sense-of-the-Senate amendment is to retain Congress' role in evaluating the budget request of the…”

“the purpose of this sense-of-the-Senate amendment is to retain Congress' role in evaluating the budget request of the Department of Energy, as it relates to the Department's Kansas City plant, before the budget request is implemented. The Department of Energy budget proposal for fiscal year 1995 for the Department's Kansas City plant is very troubling. Initially, the Department requested $280 million for the Kansas City plant for fiscal year 1995. However, responding to an Office of Management and Budget review of its budget, DOE scaled the funding proposal back, first to $270 million, and finally to $214 million. Our need to develop and produce nuclear weapons has, fortunately, diminished greatly. Reductions in funding for maintenance of the Nation's nuclear deterrent are now possible. For the past several years, the Department has studied how it should consolidate facilities which produce nonnuclear components for nuclear weapons. Last year, the Secretary of Energy determined that all nonnuclear component manufacturing and stockpile maintenance at the Rocky Flats, Mound, and Pinellas plants should be terminated and that consolidation should take place at DOE's Kansas City plant. Even though Kansas City will be the one consolidated nonnuclear site, the Plant has experienced significant cutbacks over the past several years.”