Oct 11, 2011

By John Fleck

From the Albuquerque Journal

Cutting the federal budget seems all the rage in political circles these days.

The problem, as is becoming increasingly obvious, is that all that money is currently going to someone. Those people very much seem to want to continue to receive it or, if possible, get more.

As an example, consider the tug of war over money the Department of Energy is spending in southeastern New Mexico to dispose of its backlog of radioactive waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant outside Carlsbad.

Congressional budget cutters have proposed modest spending reductions. The project’s defenders have gone into hyperdrive.

Lost in the discussion seems to be the question of how well the government’s money – upwards of $200 million per year – is being spent.

The Department of Energy’s own “performance measures” give reason for pause. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the final amount of waste tucked safely underground was less than half the target set by the Department of Energy when it asked Congress for the latest $200 million.

In operation since 1999, WIPP has long benefited from a helpful political dynamic – supported by those trying to clean up nuclear sites around the country (who need a place to send their waste) in a happy alliance with the community of Carlsbad (which likes the jobs).

When those jobs are under threat, the region’s political leadership can be counted on to step up.

“Given WIPP’s success, we must act now to protect the jobs at WIPP, which also support other jobs in the local community,” Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., normally a fiscal hawk, said in a June announcement pledging legislation intended to keep the money flowing to WIPP.

Support for the money from the state’s congressional delegation is bipartisan. Democratic Sens. Tom Udall and Jeff Bingaman last month sent a letter to their appropriations committee colleagues arguing against cutting WIPP’s budget.

“As a mayor, I agree that waste of money in government is unacceptable, whether it is local, state or federal government,” Carlsbad Mayor Dale Janway wrote in an op-ed published last month in the Carlsbad Current-Argus. “We cannot confuse a critical, incredibly successful federal program like WIPP that has a 12-year track record of successfully and safely solving our nation’s nuclear waste problems with other federal programs that lack the critical importance and ongoing success of WIPP.”

But “success” here is in the eye of the beholder. And the debate over the definition highlights the inevitable tension between carrying out legitimate federal functions and providing jobs for the folks tasked with doing the work. That tension is likely to be on display in every single budget cut discussion to come.

There is no question that by some measures, WIPP has been a spectacular success. Through Oct. 1, according to federal records, it had received 10,026 shipments of waste contaminated with plutonium and other dangerously radioactive materials, safely stowing them in a salt mine 2,150 feet beneath the desert of southeast New Mexico with no spills, leaks or other serious problems. By those measures, Janway’s description of the project as “incredibly successful” applies.

But by the Department of Energy’s own “performance measures,” the project’s record is less rosy, in a way that leaves it vulnerable when congressional appropriators begin hunting for fat to trim.

Each year, the Department of Energy approaches Congress in February with a proposed spending plan for the following year, outlining how much money it says it needs for WIPP and how much waste it expects to put in the ground in return.

In February 2010, the plan set a target of 15,019 cubic meters of waste disposed of in WIPP during the 2011 fiscal year. The actual performance at year’s end was 7,314 cubic meters – less than half the target.

WIPP’s chief scientist, Roger Nelson, said the “performance measures” set out in the annual budget request to Congress should be viewed more as “ambitious goals” rather than firm performance commitments against which WIPP’s success should be judged. The DOE’s budget request is not so squishy. The purpose of the performance measures is, in the bureaucratic language of the budget request to Congress, to establish “expectations and accountability for those expectations within a given funding level.”

This year’s performance shortfalls at WIPP drew unusual public attention last summer because part of the 2011 money came from the Obama administration’s 2009 stimulus program. A July report from the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General complained that the agency spent the money without meeting waste disposal targets.

That was red meat for stimulus program critics. But it was nothing new. In seven of the last nine years, according to an analysis by watchdog Don Hancock, WIPP has fallen short of the performance measures set in DOE’s annual budget request.

Most years, no one other than Hancock and the occasional newspaper reporter pays any attention to WIPP’s failure to hit its targets. Certainly the politicians eager to keep the money flowing don’t seem to mind.

This year, the Department of Energy seems to have discovered a novel solution to the problem of its repeated failures to meet WIPP disposal goals. Nelson acknowledged in an interview last week that none have been set for the 2011-12 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

UpFront is a daily front-page opinion column. Comment directly to John Fleck at 823-3916 or jfleck@abqjournal.com.

— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal