mr. chairman , i yield myself such time as i may consume . 
mr. chairman , it is my pleasure to submit to the house for its consideration h.r. 2419 , the energy and water development appropriations bill for fiscal year 2006 . 
the committee on appropriations approved this bill unanimously on may 18 , and i believe it is a good bill that merits the support of the entire house . 
mr. chairman , this bill provides annual funding for a wide range of federal programs including such diverse matters as flood control , navigation improvements , environmental restoration , nuclear waste disposal , advanced scientific research , applied energy research , maintenance of our nuclear stockpile , and nuclear non-proliferation . 
total funding for energy and water development in fiscal year 2006 is $ 29 , 746 , 000 , 000 . 
this funding amount represent a decrease of $ 728 , 000 below the budget request and $ 86.3 million below the current fiscal year . 
this bill is right at our subcommittee 's 302 ( b ) allocation and provides adequate funds to meet the priority needs of the house . 
title i of the bill provides for the civil works program of the army corps of engineers ; the formally utilized sites remedial action program , which is executed by the corps ; and the office of the assistant secretary of the army for civil works . 
the committee recommends a total of $ 4.746 billion for title i activities , $ 294 million below the current year and $ 414 million above the current budget request . 
i want to explain a couple of things about the corps as we go through this and take a little time on this because some of this is a change . 
for a number of years , the corps civil works program has been oversubscribed where congress kept giving the corps more and more projects to do but not enough money to do them . 
we took steps last year to put the corps on the road to fiscal recovery by eliminating the number of new starts and concentrating resources on the completion of ongoing construction projects . 
we also asked omb to adopt a new approach to future corps budget requests so that we can use our limited resources to complete the most valuable projects efficiently , instead of spreading those resources very widely to make incremental progress across a large number of projects . 
the fiscal year 2006 budget request adopts such a performance-based approach for the corps budget . 
proposing to use the ratio of remaining costs to remaining benefits is the primary determinant of which construction projects should receive priority consideration for funding . 
while this ratio may not be a perfect measure of merit of all the projects , the budget request represents good faith from the omb to concentrate the corps ' limited resources on finishing the most worthwhile projects that are already under construction . 
until we begin to clear out the enormous backlog of ongoing work , we are reluctant to start new projects ; therefore , we did not include any new starts again this year in this bill . 
one consequence of adopting this new performance-based approach to the corps is that the funds available for member adds for corps projects are very limited this year . 
in part , this is because for the first time in years we received a budget request in which many congressional priorities are already at the funded level . 
i think this is an improvement . 
however , even with that request as a good starting point , the total amount that we can provide for the corps is less than what the house passed in fiscal year 2005 . 
with a healthy base request and a lean 302 ( b ) allocation , we did not add as much for member projects as we have in previous years . 
we were harsh , but fair , in how we dealt with these member projects . 
our fiscal year 2006 energy and water bill makes major strides to improving the corps ' project execution reprogrammings and continuing contracts . 
for a workload of approximately 2 , 000 projects , the chief of engineers recently told me that the corps had 2 , 000 projects , but they had 20 , 000 reprogrammings . 
we think this is not good management , and we have done a lot in our bill to try to focus the corps on these continuing contracts . 
the problem is that the corps has done a lot of reprogrammings . 
they have moved funds around . 
we believe this is a case management problem . 
we have taken extensive efforts to try to reform this program because we think that they may not have the money to restore what they should , and if there is a big plume in all of this , that they can not really tell us what it is all about . 
another area that we have a problem with is in the continuing-contract area . 
some people would like to get rid of continuing contracts . 
i do not happen to believe that . 
i think it is a tool that they need , but we need to make sure that they are not using them to excess and they are not using them to do things that either the administration did not want to fund , we did not want to fund , or the senate did not want to fund ; and that this money is not being shifted around or execution is being done that would inhibit our ability in future years to fund programs by the original funding by the corps . 
the department of energy received a total of $ 24.318 billion in the energy and water bill . 
that is an increase of $ 105 million over the budget request , about $ 101 million less than the fiscal year 2005 level . 
as with the corps , we asked the department of energy to begin preparing 5-year budget plans , first for individual programs and then an integrated plan for the department . 
i think this is just good money management within these departments . 
we need 5-year plans . 
we actually need longer visions in these programs so that we know what we are going to end up with in the waterways in the future and we know what the department of energy 's plans are in the future . 
the committee has several important new initiatives for the department of energy . 
doe presently has significant quantities of weapons-usable special nuclear materials , plutonium and highly enriched uranium , scattered around its complexes . 
unfortunately , even with the heightened attention to homeland security after the 9/11 attacks , the department has done little to consolidate these high-risk materials . 
we have provided additional funds for material consolidation initiative and direct doe to take aggressive action to consolidate its weapons-usable uranium and plutonium into fewer , more secure sites . 
we think this is not only a security problem , but it costs us a lot of money and we think we can do better . 
we also propose a spent fuel recycling initiative to stimulate some fresh thinking on how this country deals with its spent nuclear fuel . 
i want to state that i fully support the yucca mountain repository , and our bill fully funds the request for yucca mountain in fiscal year 2006 . 
it is critical that we get yucca mountain done and done right and done soon . 
however , we continue to be frustrated by the delays in getting the repository open , and we are concerned about what will happen after that first repository is built . 
the department of energy estimates that each year of delay on yucca mountain costs the government an additional billion dollars , half from the legal liability for doe 's failure to begin accepting commercial spent fuel beginning in 1988 , as required by the law , and the other half from the costs . 
in addition , the authorized capacity of yucca mountain will be fully utilized by the year 2010 with no place to dispose of spent fuel generated after that date . 
it is time to rethink our approach on spent fuel . 
we need to start moving spent fuel away from reactor sites to one or more centralized , above-ground interim storage facilities located at doe sites . 
if we want to build a new generation of nuclear power reactors in this country , we have got to demonstrate to investors and the public that the federal government will live up to its responsibilities under the nuclear waste policy act and to take title to commercial spent fuel . 
i would note that we are already storing foreign reactor fuel on doe sites . 
it is time we do the same for our domestic spent fuel . 
this may help to limit the billions of dollars of legal liability facing the federal government for its failure to accept commercial spent fuel for disposal . 
it is also time to think about our reluctance to reprocess spent fuel . 
the europeans are doing this very successfully , and there are some advanced reprocessing technologies in the research and development phase that promise to reduce or eliminate some of the disadvantages of the current chemical process . 
we add funds to the nuclear waste disposal account and direct the secretary to begin accepting commercial spent fuel in fiscal year 2006 for interim storage at one or more doe sites . 
we also include additional funds and direction within the nuclear energy account for the secretary to select an advanced reprocessing technology in fiscal year 2007 and to establish a competitive process to select one or more sites for an advanced fuel recycling facility . 
lastly , the committee recommends a new sustainable stockpile initiative to ensure the future of our nation 's nuclear deterrent . 
the committee provides additional funds for the reliable replacement warhead that we initiated in last year 's conference report . 
we placed the reliable replacement warhead in the context of a larger sustainable stockpile initiative , which we view as a package deal with several key components . 
first , the reliable replacement warhead is a program to reengineer existing warheads to be safer , more secure , cheaper to maintain , easier to dismantle and , more importantly , easier to certify without underground testing . 
secondly , we propose a modest slowdown of life extension work on the old warheads in preparation for a shift to the newer replacement warheads . 
this is coupled with a significant increase in dismantlement rates to bring down the stockpile to match the president 's decision about the size of the stockpile by the year 2012 . 
frankly , in the long run , i am hopeful the secretary 's task force on the nuclear weapons complex will propose some sensible steps to modernize the doe weapons complex and bring it into line with these coming changes in the size and composition of the stockpile . 
the committee provided for an aggressive nuclear nonproliferation program within the national nuclear security administration . 
we provided an additional $ 65 million to keep the plutonium producing reactor shutdown program with the russians on track to have all three reactors closed by 2011 . 
the committee also provided $ 85 million additional for the russian material protection program to secure nuclear materials overseas . 
we made a significant reduction to the domestic mox plant because of the large unexpended prior-year balances in that project , caused by the continued liability dispute with the russians . 
given the constrained budget environment , the committee can not continue to appropriate hundreds of millions of dollars for a construction project that has been delayed for 3 years . 
i believe this is a responsible bill that makes sound investment decisions for the future of our agencies . 
members will not receive as many water and energy projects as they may have liked , but we did take care of their top priorities . 
hopefully , we did that everywhere . 
i want to thank all the members of the subcommittee on energy and water development , and related agencies for helping to bring this bill to the floor today . 
i especially want to thank my ranking member , the gentleman from indiana ( mr. visclosky ) xz4004170 , for his extraordinary cooperation this past year . 
in my opinion , this is truly a bipartisan bill that represents a hard-fought but ultimately fair and balanced compromise . 
this is the way i believe our constituents expect their representatives to work together . 
i also want to thank the chairman of the committee on appropriations , the gentleman from california ( mr. lewis ) xz4002392 and the ranking minority member , the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. obey ) xz4003000 , for their support and for allowing us to move this bill forward in such an expeditious manner . 
lastly , i want to thank the staff of the committee : kevin cook , our clerk ; john blazey , scott burnison , terry tyborowski , and tracy laturner for their work on this bill . 
i also want to thank dixon butler of the minority staff and kenny kraft , from my office , and peder moorbjerg from the visclosky office . 
i want to especially acknowledge our agency 's detailees , taunja berquam and felicia kirksey , for their invaluable assistance in putting this bill and report together . 
it is a shared bill . 
we all work together and talk to each other , and i want to thank everybody for working together to get this bill this far . 
mr. chairman , it is my privilege to submit to the house for its consideration h.r. 2419 , the energy and water development appropriations bill for fiscal year 2006 . 
the appropriations committee approved this bill unanimously on may 18 , and i believe this is a good bill that merits the support of the entire house . 
mr. chairman , this bill provides annual funding for a wide range of federal programs , including such diverse matters as flood control , navigation improvements , environmental restoration , nuclear waste disposal , advanced scientific research , applied energy research , maintenance of our nuclear stockpile , and nuclear nonproliferation . 
total funding for energy and water development in fiscal year 2006 is $ 29.746 billion . 
this funding amount represents a decrease of $ 728 , 000 below the budget request and $ 86.3 million below the current fiscal year . 
this bill is right at our subcommittee 's 302 ( b ) allocation , and provides adequate funds to meet the priority needs of the house . 
title i of the bill provides funding for the civil works program of the army corps of engineers , the formerly utilized sites remedial action program , which is executed by the corps , and the office of the assistant secretary of the army for civil works . 
the committee recommends a total of $ 4.746 billion for title i activities , $ 294 million below the current year and $ 414 million above the budget request . 
for a number of years , the corps civil works program has been oversubscribed , where congress kept giving the corps more and more projects to do , but not enough money to do them all . 
we took steps last year to put the corps on the road to fiscal recovery , by limiting the number of new starts and concentrating resources on the completion of ongoing construction projects . 
we also asked the office of management and budget to adopt a new approach to future corps budget requests , so that we can use our limited resources to complete the most valuable projects efficiently , instead of spreading those resources very widely to make incremental progress across a large number of projects . 
the fiscal year 2006 budget request adopts such a performance-based approach for the corps budget , proposing to use the ratio of remaining costs-to-remaining benefits as the primary determinant of which construction projects should receive priority consideration for funding . 
while this ratio may not be the perfect measure of merit for all projects , the budget request represents a good-faith effort from the office of management and budget to concentrate the corps ' limited resources on finishing the most worthwhile projects that are already under construction . 
until we begin to clear out the enormous backlog of ongoing work , we are very reluctant to add new projects to the pipeline . 
therefore , we did not include any new starts or new project authorizations for the corps in this house bill . 
one consequence of adopting this new performance-based approach to the corps budget is that the funds available for member adds for corps projects are very limited . 
in part , this is because , for the first time in years , we received a budget request in which many congressional priorities are already funded at a reasonable level . 
however , even with that request as a good starting point , the total amount that we can provide for the corps is less than what the house passed in fiscal year 2005 . 
with a healthy base request and a lean 302 ( b ) allocation , we did not add as much for member projects as we have in previous years . 
we were harsh but fair in how we dealt with these member requests . 
our fiscal year 2006 energy and water bill makes major strides toward improving the corps ' project execution , reprogrammings , and continuing contracts . 
let me talk for a moment about these interrelated issues . 
for a workload of approximately 2 , 000 projects , the chief of engineers recently told me that the corps does about 20 , 000 reprogrammings each year . 
we have gao reviewing the corps reprogrammings , and they tell us that the corps has reprogrammed funds for amounts as small as 6 cents . 
this is not sound financial management , and suggests that the corps is more focused on moving money around frequently to meet the corps ' determination of project needs , irrespective of the allocations provided in annual appropriations . 
instead , the corps should be managing its workload within the project allocations provided by congress . 
much of this problem is driven by the corps ' misplaced emphasis on expending 99 percent continuing contracts are a related problem . 
under this mechanism , the corps can obligate the federal government for funding future fiscal years . 
in some cases , the corps is awarding continuing contracts for projects that received no appropriation in fiscal year 2005 , or have not been included at all in the budget request for fiscal year 2006 . 
also , the corps uses accelerated earnings on continuing contracts to pay its contractors more than is appropriated for a project in the current fiscal year . 
in part , these accelerated earnings on continuing contracts are one of the drivers for the corps extensive reprogrammings , and also one of the mechanisms the corps uses in its pursuit of the 99 percent expenditure goal . 
this practice has to stop , and we include language limiting the corps ' ability to obligate the government in excess of appropriations . 
the department of energy receives a total of $ 24.318 billion in the energy and water development bill , an increase of $ 105 million over the budget request but $ 101 million less than the fiscal year 2005 level . 
as with the corps , we task the department of energy to begin preparing 5-year budget plans , first for individual programs and then an integrated plan for the entire department . 
this plan must include business plans for each of the doe laboratories , so we understand the mission and resource needs of each laboratory . 
the committee includes several important new initiatives for the department of energy . 
doe presently has significant quantities of weapons-usable special nuclear materials , plutonium and highly enriched uranium , scattered around the complex . 
unfortunately , even with the heightened attention to homeland security after the 9-11 attacks , the department has done little to consolidate these high-risk materials . 
we provide additional funds for a material consolidation initiative and direct doe to take aggressive action to consolidate its weapons-usable uranium and plutonium into fewer , more secure sites . 
we also propose a spent fuel recycling initiative to stimulate some fresh thinking on how this country deals with its spent nuclear fuel . 
i continue to support the yucca mountain repository , and our bill fully funds the request for yucca mountain in fiscal year 2006 . 
it is critical that we get yucca done right , and done soon . 
however , we continue to be frustrated by the delays in getting that repository open , and we are concerned about what happens after that first repository is built . 
the department of energy estimates that each year of delay on yucca mountain costs the government an additional $ 1 billion , half from the legal liability for doe 's failure to begin accepting commercial spent fuel beginning in 1998 , as is required by law , and the other half from the costs . 
in addition , the authorized capacity of yucca mountain will be fully utilized by the year 2010 , with no place to dispose of spent fuel generated after that date . 
it is time to rethink our approach to dealing with spent fuel . 
we need to start moving spent fuel away from reactor sites to one or more centralized , above-ground interim storage facilities located at doe sites . 
if we want to build a new generation of nuclear reactors in this country , we need to demonstrate to investors and the public that the federal government will live up to its responsibilities under the nuclear waste policy act to take title to commercial spent nuclear fuel . 
i would note that we are already it is also time that we think again about our reluctance to reprocess spent fuel . 
the europeans are doing this successfully , and there are some advanced reprocessing technologies in the research and development phase that promise to reduce or eliminate some of the disadvantages of the current chemical processes . 
we add funds to the nuclear waste disposal account and direct the secretary to begin accepting commercial spent fuel in fiscal year 2006 for interim storage at one or more doe sites . 
we also include additional funds and direction within the nuclear energy account for the secretary to select an advanced reprocessing technology in fiscal year 2007 and to establish a competitive process to select one or more sites for an advanced fuel recycling facility . 
lastly , the committee recommends a new sustainable stockpile initiative to ensure the future of our nation 's nuclear deterrent . 
the committee provides additional funds for the reliable replacement warhead , which we initiated in last year 's conference report . 
we place the reliable replacement warhead in the context of the larger sustainable stockpile initiative , which we view as a package deal with several key elements . 
first , the reliable replacement warhead is a program to re-engineer existing warheads to be safer , more secure , cheaper to maintain , easier to dismantle , and most importantly , easier to certify without underground nuclear testing . 
second , we propose a modest slow-down of life extension work on the old warheads in preparation for a shift to the newer replacement warheads . 
this is coupled with a significant increase in dismantlement rates to the committee provided for an aggressive nuclear nonproliferation program within the national nuclear security administration . 
we provided an additional $ 65 million to keep the plutonium producing reactor shutdown program with the russians on track to have all three reactors closed by 2011 . 
the committee also provided $ 85 million additional for the russian material protection program to secure nuclear material overseas . 
we made a significant reduction to the domestic mox plant because of the large unexpended prior year balances in that project caused by the continued liability dispute with the russians . 
given the constrained budget environment , the committee can not continue to appropriate hundreds of millions of dollars for a construction project that been delayed for 3 years . 
i believe this is a responsible bill that makes sound investment decisions for the future of our agencies . 
members will not receive as many water or energy projects as they might like , but we did take care of their top priorities . 
i want to thank all the members of the energy and water development subcommittee for their help in bringing this bill to the floor today . 
i especially want to thank my ranking member , mr. visclosky of indiana , for his extraordinary cooperation this past year . 
this is truly a bipartisan bill that represents a hard-fought but ultimately fair and balanced compromise . 
this is why i believe our constituents expect their representatives to work together . 
i also want to thank the chairman of the appropriations committee , mr. lewis , and the ranking minority member , mr. obey , for their support and for allowing us to move this bill forward in an expeditious manner . 
lastly , i would like to thank the staff of the subcommittee -- kevin cook , john blazey , scott burnison , terry tyborowki , and tracey laturner -- for their hard work on this bill . 
i also want to thank dixon butler of the minority staff , and both kenny kraft from my office and peder maarbjerg of mr. visclosky 's office . 
i especially want to acknowledge our agency detailees , taunja berquam and felicia kirksey , for their invaluable assistance in putting this bill and report together . 
mr. chairman , i reserve the balance of my time . 
