No sympathy for Idaho
The abiding faith among Republicans who championed George
W. Bush’s election as president is that he’ll attack federal spending
with a meat cleaver.
And, indeed, he’s doing that with gusto—to the
absolute chagrin of party faithful who might wonder if that’s what they
really wanted.
Include among those Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson: He’s
fretting about a $700 million cut in the Department of Energy budget.
Simpson is concerned that reduced DOE spending might
hobble the cleanup of nuclear waste at the Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Laboratory.
This illustrates one of the eccentricities of Republican
House members who relish budget cuts, but not cuts in their important
projects back home.
Rep. Simpson may not find much sympathy if he goes around
the president and appeals to Bush’s Secretary of Energy, Spencer
Abraham, who was defeated for re-election to the U.S. Senate by Michigan
voters.
As a member of the Senate, Abraham attempted to abolish
the Department of Energy.
So, the man who’ll decide whether INEEL nuclear waste
cleanup is fully funded has a history of despising the agency over which
he now presides, and thus presumably has every reason to transform the DOE
into a colossal failure to prove his claims that the department won’t
work.
President Bush’s pick of Abraham as energy secretary is
the equivalent of naming a pyromaniac to be fire chief.
