WILL THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY FINALLY STOP NUKING AMERICA?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100310004-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Will the Department of
Energy Finally Stop
Nuking America?
Prospects for national energy reform
by Peter Gray
January 26, 1990: The briefing room atmosphere
was cheerful and relaxed. Several staff members
seemed disappointed by the low press turnout. We
waited for Department of Energy (DOE) second-in-
command W. Henson Moore, the deputy secretary.
Moon started by announcing "the first policy ini-
tiative of its kind in a decade; 'then said, "...energy
efficiency and rcnewables [arc] the cleanest. cheap-
est, safest means of meeting our nation's needs in the
1990s and beyond."
...There's no need to wait for the 1991 budget;
no need to wait for the National Energy Strategy to
come out in the fall; we are going to start today... .
It's time for the government to set an example.
We've been talking about it for a decade; now is the
time to do something about it. We will start this
morning in this room."
The reporter next to me had dozed off. He had his
press packet; why bother taking notes? Who would
know that he had missed the offscript remarks? Here
we were watching the Berlin Wall come down, and
this guy was napping on the job.
Moore sketched the projected results of the con-
servation and renewable energy initiatives. Federal
investment of 5336 million over a decade will return
cash savings of 95-to-1; energy consumption will
drop by 14 percent of imported oil; lS large power
plants will not need to be built; and carbon and sul-
phur dioxide emissions will decrease.
Moore began the first program under the initia-
tive: sending out efficiency teams of lighting special-
ists to "help get the federal house in order." "I want
to introduce to you the first member of our efficiency
teams-Charlie Jones, a career electrician for the
Forrestal building."
A middle-aged, somewhat shy man in tan cover-
alls with an oval name patch sewn on the chest came
in with an assistant. a ladder, and a set of hand tools.
He opened a fluorescent ceiling fixture. As efficiency
specialist Jones began wiring in a new solid state bal-
last (the voltage-boosting transformer that drives flu-
orescent tubes), Moore explained that each device
would save taxpayers six dollars per year.
It may sound ridiculous, but there I sat, watching
this dog-and-pony show, contemplating the possibili-
ty that DOE after a decade of neglect might begin to
do something to benefit the country and improve the
health of the planet, and tears were coming to my
eyes.
After a year on the job, DOE Secretary James D.
Watkins shows some promise of solving the perenni-
al executive branch conundrum: Can we find agency
leaders who have enough inside knowledge and pow-
er to get things done. yet can'be trusted to act in the
national interest? If Watkins fulfills this promise at
Energy, it won't be a minute too soon-America has
no more of a coherent energy policy today than it did
when DOE was established; conservation has been
mostly for volunteers and small entrepreneurs: a sig-
nificant amount of money is still being put into nu-
clear power plants that aren't producing a kilowatt.
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while our air and water are threatened by nuclear
waste; in the meantime, DOE has spent more and
more of its time and money not on creative approach-
es to this mess but on ...making nuclear bombs. So
the idea that DOE may be turning towards such es-
sentials as energy conservation is a radical shift~ne
that should be encouraged at every turn.
Bomb America first
One mid-January afternoon I waited in a reception
area in DOE's Forrestal Building to interview Linda
Stuntz, deputy undersecretary in charge of the Office
of Policy, Planning, and Analysis. Watkins has called
Stuntz his "right-hand person for strategy develop-
ment," and during the past year she has organized a
series of public "energy strategy hearings" around the
country.
A prominent photo on the wall gives a candid
statement of DOE's real business. It shows a tranquil
desert scene-at the Nevada Test Site, where the
U.S. explodes nuclear bombs underground. Most
tests are conducted under the desert floor, in shafts
up to 10 feet in diameter and 6,000 feet deep.
Drilling, lowering the bomb and instruments into the
hole, and filling it with concrete, epoxy, and gravel
takes up to two years, at an average cost of at least
$30 million.
About once each month, another test bomb is ex-
ploded, and within a few days a subsidence crater up
to a thousand feet in diameter appears on the surface.
Even during a test, the site looks as peaceful as the
scene on the wall.
It's no wonder there arc nuclear test site pictures
in these offices. There probably ought to be a mush-
room cloud on the department letterhead. After all,
during Reagan's tenure, the share of DOE's budget
devoted to designing, testing, and manufacturing nu-
clear weapons increosed front 32 to nearly 70 per-
cent.
The uninitiated may be excused for asking, "What
is the Energy Department doing in the nuclear bomb
business?"
DOE's first seree was Jame
previously head of the CIA, and later secretary o
fence. In all three oosmons. he waQ a memher ~f rh'
nuclear inner cirek.
harles Duncan was the second secretary, ap-
pointed by President Carter in 1979 and the last to try
steering DOE toward its stated mission. His tack of
military background kept him from influencing
weapons policy, and he soon made enemies in the es?
tablished energy industries. According to Tina Hob-
son, who served as a senior executive at DOE under
the first four secretaries, "Duncan said, 'During my
tenure at DOE, conservation will play the lead role.'
He tried to make that happen, and he was dynamited
by everybody."
The noble-sounding purposes of the nuclear
weapons clique put mundane items such as the envi-
ronment in the deep shade. Secrecy prevented outside
oversight or regulation, while internal supervision of
the contractors, who
constituted 90 percent
of DOE's workforce,
was lax at best.
Schlesinger's altitude
fit this ethos to a T; ac-
cording to Hobson, with
him it was, "If you just
leave me alone, I will
take care of the prob-
lem. Don't ask me any
questions, don't hold me
accountable, don't do
anything else, just be-
lieve in me."
Later on, that kind of
faith came easily to
Ronald Reagan, who
had been a TV pitchman
for General Electric, one
of DOE's largest wea-
pons contractors. His
disdain for regulation,
especially environmen-
tal regulation, was
matched only by his ab-
solute trust in business.
During his 1980
presidential campaign,
Reagan singled out
DOE as a prime exam-
ple of government waste
and promised to abolish
the department. In the
words of Deputy Under-
The department's
budget diagram
is full of
euphemisms.
"Strengthening
National
Defense" is set
at s9.2
billion-with
58.5 billion for
nuclear weapons.
On the other side
is s3.3 billion,
called
"Respecting the
Environment."
It's devoted to
weapons plant
cleanup.
secretary Stuntz: "That didn't exactly set the tone for
the agency to feel that it had a mission and a future."
Yet DOE's budget has stayed roughly constant in real
terms since 1980. According to Hobson, this is why:
"We knew that Reagan's campaign did not fully real-
ize that the weapons system was a major part of
DOE."
After the Reaganauts wised up, the 1980s saw the
steady, quiet diversion of DOE even further from its
stated purpose. Its weapons branch had long been the
most powerful, not to mention the most immune to
public scrutiny. IYow falling oil prices, combined
with Reagan's massive diversion of funds into the
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military, accelerated the weapons takeover of DOE.
By 1988, more than twice as much money was going
into weapons as into the rest of DOE programs com-
bined.
Through the late 1980s, public outrage over the
plants increased as the scale of abuse was gradually
exposed. At the Fernald, Ohio weapons plant, more
than half a million pounds of radioactive wastes had
been dumped into the air and into Ohio's largest
drinking water aquifer. During the fifties, radioactive
iodine had been deliberately released from the Han-
ford plant. High-level nuclear waste still leaks out of
storage tanks there. Similar stories come from Savan-
nah River, where serious accidents and pollutant re-
leases that began in 1957 were finally made public in
1988. At all of the facilities, health and safety prac-
tices were poor, and many records were altered or de-
stroyed. With the recent indications that there is an
appreciable cancer danger even from the exposure to
radiation that comes merely from being an airline
passenger, the long-range health risks of govern-
ment's decades of blatant nucleaz mismanagement
cannot be shrugged off.
Tiger teams at Rocky Flats
Because of the scale of the problems Watkins
faces and the independent thinking he brings to his
job, he's been compared to Gorbachev. Like Gor-
bachev's, his vision may be limited by his having
risen through a secret society-the very path that
makes him so effective. Watkins was handpicked by
Hyman Rickover for the elite corps of Navy nuclear
engineers, so he is a longtime member of what
amounts to an officially sanctioned secret cult. Final-
ly, Watkins resembles Gorbachev in that his actions
may have consequences faz beyond his intentions.
DOE critics saw cause for hope in Watkins's per-
formance as head of Reagan's AIDS Commission.
His integrity and sense of justice were well known,
but Watkins surprised nearly everyone with his can-
dor, compassion, and creativity. And he abstained
from moralizing, even though he is a staunch conser-
vative and a devout Catholic.
One of Watkins's fast projects at Energy was the
use of "Tiger Teams" of nuclear facility experts. who
invaded the weapons plants one by one, sometimes
with little or no warning. After 40 years of classified
operation, this was amuch-needed innovation. Tiger
Team reports may be expected to whitewash here and
then, but each team is, when possible. composed of
people with no direct connection to the plant under
investigation. Although their reports on environmen-
tal, health, and safety practices are written in eu-
phemistic bureaucratese, they confirm that violations
were serious and systematic. The findings have torn
holes in the already frayed secrecy curtains that had
hidden Rocky Flats. Fernald. Savannah River. Han-
ford, and a dozen others from view. As a result, sev-
eral plants, or major sections of plants, have shut
down and will never restart.
Techno sop
For years DOE has argued that it is not subject to
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and it
has been free from compliance with the Occupational
Safety and Health Act. The "acceptable standards" it
has set for itself for air and water pollution have been
many times higher than levels that apply elsewhere.
And the wording of the Emergency Planning and
Community Right-to-Know Act covers all private
and state manufacturing but exempts federal facili-
ties. All these exceptions may fall soon. Watkins has
repeatedly said that the environment, health, and
safety will be top priorities at the weapons plants.
But some warning signals come from one of
Watkins's official alliances: The secretary stands be-
hind Yctor Stello, Bush's nominee for assistant sec-
retary of defense programs, who has been under
heavy fire from environmental groups for his sloppy,
and possibly criminal, management of the Nucleaz
Regulatory Commission.
Watkins is not likely to abuse his power for per-
sonal gain, but he still deserves oversight, skepticism,
and frequent reality checks. If he makes mistakes,
they're most likely to stem from his excessive faith
in advanced technology. As an admiral, he pushed for
Aegis. an expensive, badly flawed, and probably un-
fixable naval weapons system. He was also an early
backer of SDI.
Watkins's support of Aegis, and SDI is not an irrel-
evant curiosity from his recent past. It shows an
affinity for the expensive pipe dreams of contrac-
tors-a hazard Energy must navigate around. After
all, AT&T, GE, Westinghouse. Martin Marietta, and
Goodyear are contractors at DOE's weapons plants.
Watkins's version of perestroika is to change what
he calls the "management culture" of the weapons
plants. On January 24, 1990, the secretary dropped
another bomb on them. He announced a proposal to
amend DOE acquisition regulations to make weapons
contractors accountable for losses of government
property from theft or embezzlement and for all
penalties for not complying with environmental laws.
Imagine that! These new rules on liability are a bold
expression of Watkins's ethical sense, and they are
significant in what they reveal about the past.
Even if Watkins is adamantly committed to nucle-
ar weapons development, he seems willing to clear
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away some of the underbrush of corruption, secrecy,
and environmental abuses, then let the public decide
on the merits whether to continue pouring tens of bil-
lions into bomb development. The answer should be
a firm "No" (see "Bombs are not Bright ... ," be-
low ).
Without much fanfaze, in recent months Watkins,
Moore, and Stuntz have held hearings around the
country on the National Energy Strategy. Each hear-
ing is an all-day affair, often on a locally pertinent
topic.
At these affairs. Watkins usually gives a short
opening remark, and he often attends the entire hear-
ing. The secretary says he has heard repeatedly that
what people want and believe in is conservation and
renewable energy. He is impressed with what he has
heard about innovative projecu that communities and
firms have undertaken, often with little or no support
from the federal government: one favorite is a cow-
manure-to-energy plant in EI Centro, California. He
closes his three-minute talk with [hanks "for your
willingness to assist us in this effort to devise a Na-
tional Energy Strategy without insult to the environ-
ment."
Three days after I watched Deputy Secretary
Moore kick off DOE's efficiency and conservation
initiative, the administration's 1991 Energy budget
request was released to a full auditorium of report _: s.
But the budget document was a letdown for those
who had heard Watkins and Moore say, "Any budget
that dcesn't make conservation and renewables a top
priority won't be credible to Congress, and it won't
be credible to the American people."
Despite such explicit statements, here was a re-
quest to cut the 1990 conservation budget by 5 per-
cent. Renewables did better, with a 25 percent in-
crease-about 4 percent of the journey back to
pre-Reagan levels.
The department's budget pie-diagram is full of
new euphemisms. "Strengthening National Defense"
is set at $9.2 billion-with $8.S billion for nuclear
weapons-up l l percent from 1990. On the other
side of the pie is a $3.3 billion slice called 'Respect-
ing the Environment." "Apologizing to the Environ-
ment" would be more accurate-ic's devoted to
weapons plant cleanup and defense nuclear waste
disposal-that's a pretty low payment on a bill ex-
pected to exceed $100 billion.
It's hard to reconcile the budget with the rhetoric.
But the budget probably doesn't reflect Watkins's
priorities; others in the administration-notably
White House Chief of Staff John Sununu and OMB
Director Richard Darman-had a hand in it. (When
Watkins mentioned an "ideological difference" in the
administration over conservation, efficiency, and re-
newables, he sounded like a man sending out a coded
message.) Fortunately, at DOE-unlike at the other
departments where the spending hasn't matched the
rhethoric-the right words ("efficiency," "conserva-
tion," "alternatives") can go a long way after so
many yeazs of silence.
Lean, mean, and clean
Since 1973, efficiency gains in energy consump-
tion have saved us about $1.5 trillion in energy bills.
Efficiency and conservation meant that while the
economy grew by 50 percent, the number of homes
increased by 20 million, and 60 percent more vehi-
cles went on the road, energy consumption grew by
only 8 percent.
Nice numbers, but so what? So we're all wealthier
and freer than we would have been. The U.S. is
dumping five billion tons of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere each year, rather than seven billion. Due
largely to efficiency gains made during the preceding
decade, the past five yeazs were a respite from energy
anxiety. This would have been a good time to invest
in even better technology; instead, it was a time of
missed opportunity.
Here's a story that illustrates DOE's role: In 1978,
Congress directed Energy to set home appliance effi-
ciency standazds. A few days before Reagan's 1981
inauguration, the agency issued standards on nine ap-
pliance types. The first set of standards are just now
going into effect, and they are so weak that many ap-
pliances on the market already satisfy them.
Why did the government take longer to prod onto
the market a few basic devices that will save con-
sumers energy and money than it did to put a man on
the moon'? DOE's intransigence deserves most of the
blame, but the format of the standards mandated by
Congress hasn't helped much. Under this format,
manufacturers feel that they can only lose. The regu-
lations will set minimum efficiency levels, but manu-
facturers won't be rewazded for exceeding them. And
if they don't meet the standards, enforcement and
the levels of fines are unpredictable.
Abetter policy would be to tax (or subsidize) each
appliance by the amount of energy it will waste (or
save) during, say, three years, compared to the cur-
rent average model. People would be free to buy or
sell whatever they wanted, and we would see rapid
progress toward the practical limits of efficiency.
Several energy-saving devices have come straight
from DOE labs. The solid-state ballast so admired by
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Deputy Secretary Moore is quietly "mining coal" at
rates far beyond the R&D money spent on it. Low-
emissivity glass also came out of government labs,
and it can reduce energy loss to a point where win-
dows rival insulated walls. These are among many
DOE research projects that will eventually save hun-
dreds or even thousands of times the money spent on
them.
How much more can we squeeze out of efficiency,
and what will it cost? One hint comes from the many
industrialized democracies that are up to twice as en-
ergy efficient in various economic sectors as we are.
Economic advancement is strongly correlated with
lower. not higher, energy intensity (consumption per
GNP dollar).
At the January 26 press conference, I asked Moore
whether DOE expects attacks from the coal, oil, and
nuclear industries, and how he plans to respond. He
didn't expect to be attacked: "Conservation doesn't
conflict with other energy sources, but complements
chem. We hope they will see the wisdom in this ap-
(icing its economy with a unilateral cazbon tax: am-
ple proof of cooperation can be seen in agreements
such as the Montreal Protocol on ozone-destroying
chemicals, and most industrial nations already tax
their fuels heavily.
An emissions tax deserves to be called a "user
fee," not to disguise what it is but to emphasize that it
is a charge for using the public atmosphere as a waste
dump. Taxing carbon consumption will promote effi-
ciency, the best bridge toward sustainable energy use.
Global warming may also be the last chance to
save fission (uranium-based) power. Despite its long
string of broken promises, nuclear may someday be
part of the answer, and it may deserve further R&D
funding. But taxpayers should insist on a package
deal: 1) responsible and vigorous oversight every
step of the way; 2) up-front accounting of the risks
and costs of waste disposal and plant decommission-
ing; 3) reactor operators must buy their own liability
insurance instead of shifting this burden to the public
as they do now; and 4) DOE must guarantee that nu-
proach." But efficiency doesn't complement other
energy sources, it replaces them--especially when
the survival of an industry depends on demand in-
creases to justify massive funding. Efficiency was a
main reason nuclear reactor orders ceased in 1978.
I asked about fluorescent ballasts. How much do
they cost? How will you get building contractors to
buy them? Moore expressed confidence in the market
to put all things right. It's only a matter of setting a
good example, he said; give people information, and
they will naturally buy the most efficient and envi-
ronmentally benign products. Perhaps, but don't
count on it.
Gone fission
The political key to positive energy policy is a
willingness to divide the savings among all partici-
pants. For example, utilities can be powerful promot-
ers of rational energy production and use, but in their
natural cost-plus rate-setting habitat. conservation
and renewables are an anathema. The alternative ap-
proach could be made consistently profitable, and ex-
tended to conservation programs (see "...Bulbs
are," below).
There is disagreement among atmospheric scien-
tists over how far and how fast global warming will
progress but little controversy over whether it will
happen. We have begun a global experiment that we
cannot expect to back out of.
While we wait for a clearer picture of the effects
of global warming, common sense and prudence sug-
gest that in dealing with it we take the cheapest sups
immediately. We can devise incentives to decrease
energy consumption and to shift toward low-carbon
fuels. A tax on fuels in proportion to their carbon
content will put the incentives where they belong. If
increased gradually over 10 to 20 yeazs, a cazbon tax
will stimulate innovation just as OPEC did, but with-
out causing economic dislocation. Among the side
benefits will be improved energy security and cuts in
other pollutants. The U.S. does not need to feaz sacri-
clear power will not be used as a source of weapon
material.
Since 1973, efficiency has displaced seven times
as much energy as new nuclear reactors have sup-
plied, at costs five to ten times lower. In the near
term, efficiency cleazly wins as a fossil fuel replacer.
because even a sudden surge in orders couldn't bring
any new plants on line before the end of the decade,
under the most optimistic assumptions. For the
longer run, we have other options to consider.
Ninety percent of the world's wind power (enough
for 350,000 households) is generated in California.
not because the resource is so good, but because en-
ergy policy there was originally favorable. The aver-
age electricity harvest tops $2,000 per acre, five
times the yield of prime midwestern corn land-and
wind farms are also used for ranching.
Solar-thermal electric power is available right
now to 400,000 people in Southern California at
costs converging on the U.S. average residential rate.
One of the nucleaz lobby's counterazguments to
this trend is that solaz would use many times the land
area required by the equivalent in nucleaz. But this is
specious: Nuclear plants require lazge quantities of
water for cooling and tend to be located on valuable
riverbank or coastal land, whereas solar plants can
use desert land and can also take advantage of mil-
lions of rooftops.
One more visit to DOE's desert photo: Using cur-
rently operating solaz technology, DOE's Nevada
Test Site could replace 70 typical nuclear power
plants.
CON'TINV~
26
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Power lines
DOE's progress could eventually lead to some-
thing resembling "rational energy policy." What
would such policy look like, and why do we want it?
Rational policy must be capable of estimating the
full range of foreseeable costs and benefits from ev-
ery known energy source. Linda Stuntz points out
that no source of energy is entirely without negative
side effects. She cites the example of wind turbines.
which she says are killing several dozen eagles per
year in California. Actually, it's mostly hawks, but
fair is fair; those costs should be taken into account.
Yet we should be wary of this approach being used as
a ploy to say, "All fuels cause some environmental
damage, and we can't precisely measure any of it, so
let's assume those effects are equal, and ignore all of
them." After all, we can make distinctions: Switching
to nuclear power would cause immense quantities of
plutonium to circulate throughout the country; we
should acknowledge the health and weapons prolifer-
ation implications.
The words "Energy Policy" arouse fears-espe-
cially among those who make their livings from fos-
sil and nuclear fuels-that established energy pro-
ducers will be robbed in order to subsidize alternative
sources unfairly. This attitude is epitomized in a
statement that justified an 8S percent reduction in
government funding for renewables:
"Conservation and renewable energy
sources are an important component of this ad-
ministration's national energy policy. We sup-
port efforts by the private sector to develop al-
ternative energy sources that are economically
viable in the nation's competitive market-
place." (Emphasis added.)
-Ronald Reagan. April 16, 1985
The problem is that the nation's energy market is
far from competitive. Department of Energy R&D
funding for renewables in 1990 is 8 percent of the to-
tal for nuclear and fossil. Altogether, including loan
guarantees, tax breaks, and other subsidies. nuclear
and fossil receive S40-SO billion per year from tax-
payers. Meanwhile, estimates of environmental dam-
age from fossil fuels are in the a 100-billion-per-year
range; not adding these costs to energy prices is an
unjustifiable subsidy. A rational energy policy would
level the playing field by making prices reflect envi-
ronmental costs.
On the other hand. there are huge potential mar-
kets for wind and solar energy, and they could pro-
vide away for the U.S. to reduce its deficits and en-
joy the benefits of being an energy exporter. Even
though Japan and Germany have less than ideal con-
ditions for collecting solar energy ac home, they have
been funding photovoltaic research at twice the
American rate. They tend to know a profitable oppor-
tunity when they see one.
But few of these great things are likely to be done
through DOE as long as the department is dominated
by business-as-usual weapons production. Contrac-
tors probably won't get out of bomb building and
into sustainable energy as long as they eat at the lav-
ish trough provided through protection from scrutiny.
Here's where Watkins's amalgam of inside knowl-
edge and high ethical standards could change the ba-
sic rules.
Watkins has made several moves that, intentional-
ly or not, are likely to start winding down DOE's
weapons complex. If contractors are liable for dam-
ages they cause while working with some of the most
hazardous substances known and are subject to the
political risk of an end to the Cold War, many may
decide to take their interest elsewhere. This- could
eventually put the Energy department back in ehe en-
ergy business. _
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