It is time for Congress to take a look at the Department of Energy’s 17 national laboratories and their contribution to the agency’s mission, according to Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas).
During a Jan. 9 House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee hearing on DOE modernization, Barton said he plans to draft a bipartisan reauthorization bill for the Energy Department. The lawmaker said he was asked by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) to help manage legislation to modernize and update the priorities for DOE, which was established in the 1970s by President Jimmy Carter.
“I think it’s fair to say if we were starting from scratch, we wouldn’t have 17 national laboratories – but we do,” Barton said.
“Some of those are pretty obvious [regarding their mission],” he added. The Texas Republican cited Los Alamos, Sandia, and other labs that are deeply involved in stewardship of the U.S. nuclear arsenal as being among the facilities with “obvious” roles. The need for certain other labs is less obvious, Barton said, because they seem to duplicate research conducted elsewhere. He did not go into any detail about this research redundancy.
Barton acknowledged the politics of laboratory closures “is not good.” While not suggesting anyone is looking seriously at retiring labs, he said the role of individual sites must be better defined. The Energy Department’s labs are spread across the nation, and they are important to the local communities, Barton acknowledged: “I understand the political reality.”
The national laboratories are primarily overseen by DOE’s Office of Science and the agency’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Safety Administration, with a few exceptions. For example: The Savannah River National Laboratory is managed under a contract issued by the department’s Office of Environmental Management, which oversees cleanup of DOE nuclear sites.
The broad scope of programs conducted at nuclear laboratories includes nuclear stockpile stewardship, nonproliferation research, energy research, cybersecurity, advanced computer science, and nuclear engineering.
The labs are a big investment. The Trump administration requested more than $31 billion for the sites in fiscal 2018.
In fiscal 2016, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico had an operating budget of more than $2.11 billion. The NNSA’s share of that was more than $1.87 billion, and the Office of Environmental Management contributed $178 million in funding, according to an Energy Department fact sheet.
Congress owes it to taxpayers to take a serious look at the role of the national labs, Barton said. He also praised the quality of the scientists who work at the facilities.
“The issue is not whether we need 17 labs,” said Richard Powell, executive director of the ClearPath Foundation, a conservative think tank, but whether the nation needs “17 labs that say they can do almost anything.” Labs seem to pursue a something-for-everyone research approach to appeal to every new presidential administration, Powell said during the subcommittee hearing.
Barton’s office did not reply this week to questions about timing and details of any potential DOE modernization bill.
ClearPath spokesman Darren Goode said the organization supports the national labs, but thinks they should have well-defined goals and not be used “willy nilly.” ClearPath’s interest in the national lab’s is centered on energy-related programs rather than defense or environmental cleanup, he added.
