| Graham works for SRS cash AIKEN - Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., promised Monday to mount a campaign of gentle persuasion and arm-twisting to restore money slashed from four major programs counted on to breathe new life and jobs into Savannah River Site. South Carolina's junior senator also pledged to untangle SRS from a battle of wills between the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that crafted the deep cuts, Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, and two federal agencies - the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy. "It's going to take a lot of education, a lot of work," Mr. Graham said. "There's something going on in subcommittee we need to get to the bottom of. We're caught in a dispute between DOE, DOD and the subcommittee." With U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, who represents the district that includes SRS, Mr. Graham is spearheading the push by Georgia and South Carolina politicians to undo the damage of a House bill passed Friday. The Energy and Water Appropriations Bill stripped all of fiscal year 2005's money out of a Modern Pit Facility project that would build new triggers for nuclear weapons, reduced by half the dollars earmarked for the mixed-oxide program that would convert weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants, and denied all money needed to upgrade the newly named Savannah River National Laboratory. The bill also stripped $31 million out of President Bush's hydrogen fuel initiative, something the site's supporters have said would be a boon because of SRS scientists' expertise in this field. The bill also cut $76 million from a high-level nuclear waste cleanup program that SRS supporters say will delay getting rid of the radioactive byproducts of more than 50 years of weapons work. Mr. Hobson has accepted an invitation from Mr. Graham and Mr. Barrett to tour SRS. Though the subcommittee chairman is angered by DOE and DOD foot-dragging, Mr. Hobson also believes the Modern Pit Facility could spur nuclear rearmament and proliferation, according to Mr. Barrett, and he views the Savannah River National Laboratory as one national lab too many. "He doesn't dislike me, he doesn't dislike South Carolina, he doesn't dislike SRS," Mr. Barrett said. "It's a matter of policy. ... He told me, 'I don't have any beef with Savannah River.'" Said Mr. Graham: "We're not talking about creating a new generation of nuclear weapons. Our inventory of nuclear weapons needs to be upgraded to maintain its reliability." U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint met with President Bush on Friday to talk about the SRS cuts, Mr. Barrett said. "There is no stone we're leaving unturned," he said.
Reach Jim Nesbitt at (803) 648-1395, ext. 111, or jim.nesbitt@augustachronicle.com. Graham
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