A House subcommittee has voted for a modest cut to the U.S. nuclear weapons budget, which funds thousands of jobs at New Mexico’s national laboratories.



The House Energy and Water Development Subcommittee cut $100 million — or 1.6 percent — from this year’s budget. The Bush Administration has asked for an increase in weapons funding, but as the Albuquerque Journal reported this morning, lawmakers said the nation’s nuclear weapons program lacks the focus and direction to make that committment:

There is too much uncertainty about the long-term plan for the U.S. nuclear arsenal— and the complex of factories and labs used to maintain it— to justify the funding increase requested by the Bush Administration, said the subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind.



"There is no sense in expending the taxpayers’ hard earned dollars absent a clear plan," Visclosky said in a statement.



To some extent, that concern echoes the findings in a recent report from the General Accountability Office, which described the government’s long-term strategy for plutonium production — a key weapons component — in a "state of flux."



The subcommittee’s bill reduces weapons funding from the Bush Administration’s requested $6.6 billion to $6.3 billion, while increasing funding for nuclear nonproliferation from the requested $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion.



"I hope that the next Administration will better recognize the national security benefits of nuclear nonproliferation," Visclosky said in his statement.



Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., told the Journal that he’s inclined not to support the bill when it goes to the House Appropriations Committee, of which Udall is a member. The vote comes as Udall runs against Rep. Steve Pearce for retiring U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici’s long-held seat. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said he hoped New Mexico’s labs could benefit from the boost in nonproliferation programs and non-weapons research, according to the paper.



Domenici, meanwhile, will spend his last months in Congress playing familiar role: working to restore weapons funding in the Senate.



"I support a lot of things they’ve done in the bill, I just believe we’ll have a different view, a different version, and hopefully we’ll have grounds to stop these cuts," Domenici told the Journal.



The subcommittee’s vote this week is only the first step in a long budget process that may not get decided until next year, after a new president and Congress take office.