During consideration of the Fiscal Year 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, H.R. 4923, Taxpayers for Common Sense recommends an “aye” vote on the following amendments:
Blumenauer Amendment to allow the Department of Energy to place the Mixed-Oxide (MOX) plutonium disposition facility in “cold-standby” as requested in this year’s budget. The fiscal year 2014 budget request stated that, due to rising cost estimates, converting plutonium to MOX fuel may be unaffordable. The costs of MOX are already high and only getting higher, so the threshold at which this program became fiscally irresponsible was crossed long ago. It’s time to end the handouts and put MOX in cold standby, as requested by the Department of Energy.
Speier Amendment to cut the Fossil Research and Development account by $30 million, reducing it to FY 14 levels. In 2013, the top six oil and gas companies made more than $104 billion in profits. And recently, the Congressional Budget Office recommended cutting fossil energy R&D to reduce the deficit because DOE’s funding for coal technologies has failed to produce results. Taxpayers cannot afford to be footing the bill for this mature industry.
Quigley Amendment to eliminate the $7.6 million increase in funding for the warhead for a proposed new nuclear-armed cruise missile. The amendment would fund the program at the Administration’s requested level of $9.4 million. Since there has been no final decision by the Obama Administration to pursue the new cruise missile, it makes no sense to increase funds for the warhead component of this project. In addition, the Air Force is planning to buy up to 100 new penetrating bombers as well as updating the B61 gravity bomb. In this time of tight budgets we cannot afford a new penetrating bomber, a new gravity bomb, and a new cruise missile.
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