Senate Republicans Push Energy Dept. Security Plan

Senate Republicans rejected Clinton administration pleas Tuesday that they postpone controversial legislation to revamp security and counterintelligence operations inside the Energy Department in the wake of the China espionage scandal.

Sponsors of the restructuring proposal said that they will go ahead with plans to try to attach it to an intelligence funding bill expected to be taken up by the full Senate on Thursday. They predicted that the provision would pass.

The decision came after an unusual joint hearing conducted by four separate Senate committees at which Energy Secretary Bill Richardson asked lawmakers to modify their proposal to let him retain more direct control over security and counterintelligence operations.

The senators’ plan closely follows a recommendation by the independent President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board to create a “semi-autonomous” security and counterintelligence agency within the Energy Department to handle both issues.

Former Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), the advisory board’s chairman, told lawmakers at the hearing that the changes are necessary because the Energy Department has refused to tackle the problem for more than 25 years.

Rudman’s panel issued a scathing report last week charging that the department, which by law has responsibility for the nation’s nuclear weapon development facilities, is “a dysfunctional bureaucracy that has proven it is incapable of reforming itself.”

“The nuclear weapons and research functions of DOE need more autonomy, a clearer mission, a streamlined bureaucracy and increased accountability,” the document said. It warned that any reorganization plan must be aimed at changing the “institutional culture” of the department.

The Rudman recommendations, along with separate proposals by an investigative panel headed by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), have attracted considerable attention because of allegations that China may have obtained U.S. nuclear weapon secrets through espionage efforts.

Despite their rejection of Richardson’s pleas, lawmakers left the door open to further negotiations with the administration. The Energy secretary has been moving gradually toward the senators’ position, although he continued to stand firm on a few organizational issues.

“There’s a large patch of common ground here,” Richardson said at Tuesday’s hearing, in which he and Rudman conducted what appeared to be a set of public negotiations over several of the key issues involved.

Democrats on the panel agreed with Republicans that some action by Congress is necessary, although they sided with Richardson in urging sponsors of the measure to take more time to work out a compromise with the administration.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), a member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, noted that “the patch [of common ground] is larger now than it was a few hours ago at the start of this hearing.” He urged the administration and the Republicans to continue their negotiations in an effort to work out their differences.

But Republicans served warning that they would continue to insist on the kinds of reforms that the Rudman committee and other independent review panels have recommended.

“I am having a little difficulty understanding your reluctance on the specifics,” Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska), one of the measure’s sponsors, told Richardson at the end of the hearing.

The remaining dispute over the bill mainly involves bureaucratic issues. The Republicans and Rudman agreed that Richardson already has made some major reforms in DOE’s security and counterintelligence operations, covering most of what Rudman proposed.

The Republicans and the Rudman panel argue, however, that the department’s security and counterintelligence operations for nuclear weapon programs must be vested in a “semi-autonomous” agency inside DOE that has the clout to carry out Richardson’s changes.

In contrast, Richardson wants to assign that authority to high-level subordinates who would report directly to him, rather than through a new undersecretary, as the Republicans propose. He already has appointed departmental security and counterintelligence chiefs.