NEW MEXICO OFFICIALS CALL FOR ADEQUATE FUNDS FOR LANL, WIPP

A host of New Mexico state lawmakers are calling on Congressional appropriators to ensure that adequate levels of funding are provided for cleanup work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. In letters sent Feb. 14 to the heads of the House and Senate Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittees, the New Mexico lawmakers said Los Alamos and WIPP had been “short-changed” in funding for this fiscal year. While the Department of Energy had requested $362 million for cleanup work at Los Alamos and $228 million for WIPP, the sites only received $185 million and $200 million, respectively, from Congress. “The drastic cuts in FY 2012 operating budgets for LANL and WIPP will, without question, significantly decrease the pace of the legacy cleanup work at the high cost of lost jobs,” the New Mexico lawmakers wrote, adding, “It is long past time that the LANL cleanup receive at least an equal distribution of the much-higher amounts of federal dollars that our sisters DOE sites across the country have received in recent years.” The letter was signed by 21 members of the New Mexico state Senate and 31 members of the state House of Representatives.