Budget

EPA's personnel office is concerned that an agency union's push for an early retirement plan for mid-level employees could create a "brain drain" that will deprive the agency of important institutional knowledge, EPA sources say.

A personnel office source says the office is still evaluating whether there is a rational basis for extending a buyout plan previously offered to high-level managers to the mid-level employees, who make up roughly 48 percent of the agency's workforce. EPA must consider "whether we can afford it financially and . . . skillwise," the source says.

EPA's acting waste chief Thomas Dunne is calling for a new national dialogue on Superfund's future that should consider drastic reforms for the financially strapped program, including a moratorium on new Superfund listings and cleanup activity and separate management and funding for costly "mega-sites."

With the 25^th anniversary of Superfund approaching, Dunne says policymakers need to take a fresh look at reforming the program, which is facing a declining budget and new security and cleanup responsibilities that were not considered during the law's enactment.

A high-level DOD official says the Pentagon will scale back budget plans for DOD's innovative chemical weapons neutralization project in Pueblo, CO. The new limits could force cuts of as much as $1.15 billion from the estimated $2.65 billion budget program managers say is needed to meet the Pentagon's accelerated chemical destruction goals.