February 16, 2006
Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing
Opening Statement of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. I am pleased to have this opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the Administration’s priorities for nuclear weapons, threat reduction programs, and DOE’s environmental cleanup program.
All this is spelled out in detail in my written testimony. Let me just take this opportunity, then, to share some of the highlights with you.
First, our FY 2007 budget request supports the National Nuclear Security Administration’s three fundamental national security missions. These are:
- Assuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile while at the same time transforming that stockpile and the infrastructure that supports it;
- Reducing the threat posed by nuclear proliferation; and
- Providing reliable and safe nuclear reactor propulsion systems for the U.S. Navy.
To pursue these missions, the budget proposes a total of $9.3 billion in FY 2007.
This supports the requirements of the Stockpile Stewardship Program consistent with the Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review and the revised stockpile plan submitted to the Congress in June 2004. Approximately $1.4 billion in FY 2007 is requested for the Directed Stockpile Work.
To guard the integrity of our facilities, information systems and infrastructure, the budget also requests $665.7 million to fund the requirements of the Design Basis Threat. And to support the Department’s efforts to contain and roll back the proliferation of dangerous materials, technology and know-how, the budget proposes $1.726 billion for nuclear non-proliferation and threat reduction programs.
In addition to funding the national security missions of the NNSA, our budget seeks to fulfill our environmental commitments with a request of $5.8 billion to clean up legacy nuclear waste sites. We recently announced the completion of cleanup at Rocky Flats, a former nuclear weapons plant located outside of Denver, Colorado. In 2006, DOE will also complete environmental cleanup of the Fernald and Columbus sites in Ohio, the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico, and several other sites.
Mr. Chairman, there is of course much more I could tell you about regarding the Department’s work in all these areas. But I am sure we will get into the details in a moment.
Before I close I just want to mention what an exciting time this is for all of us at the Department of Energy. President Bush’s American Competitiveness Initiative and Advanced Energy Initiative are aiming to ensure that America remains at the forefront in an increasingly competitive world by pursuing transformational new technologies, and by increasing investment in clean-energy sources that will transform our transportation sector, and indeed the whole economy.
As part of the Advanced Energy Initiative, our budget request includes $250 million to begin investments in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a groundbreaking new international effort to expand safe, emissions-free nuclear power, while enhancing our ability to keep nuclear technology and material out of the hands of those who seek to use it for non peaceful purposes.
Mr. Chairman, that is just a brief outline of the cutting-edge scientific research and critical national security work we are engaged in at the Department of Energy. I look forward to discussing this with you further during the Question and Answer session.
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