House Votes To Close Bureau Of Mines Two Spokane Offices Already Threatened By Budget Cuts; Issue Goes To Conference Committee

A House of Representatives vote to close the 85-year-old Bureau of Mines late Thursday could be the final blow to two Spokane bureau offices that already were threatened with the budget ax.

The Spokane offices employ 170.

Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., who made two earlier attempts to refund the bureau, decided to let the issue go unchallenged during debate Thursday on the House floor.

“I think our better strategy is to work through the Senate and see if we can do something in the conference process to maintain the Bureau of Mines,” Nethercutt said. “I think that’s our best bet.”

A conference committee composed of members of both houses would reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions of a bill dealing with overall funding for the Department of the Interior. That funding includes the Bureau of Mines’ budget.

The House appropriated $87 million for the bureau in next year’s budget. The entire amount, however, is earmarked for closure costs and the bill further states that the bureau must close shop by Jan. 1, 1996.

According to Dave Brown, director of external affairs for the bureau in Washington, D.C., the $87 million would hardly cover final payroll and severance payments to the bureau’s approximately 1,900 employees nationwide. The money would have to cover other costs also, Brown said, such as transferring bureau facilities to universities and the General Services Administration, the government agency responsible for the disposal of surplus federal properties.

During the past year, the bureau operated 14 offices on a budget of $152 million. Two of those offices are in Spokane but, Brown said, those offices were scheduled for closure regardless of whether the House passed Nethercutt’s and President Clinton’s proposals to restore $132 million to the bureau.

Brown said only four offices would remain open even if the bureau’s budget is cut to $132 million. One or both of the Spokane offices, however, will remain open only if a bill specifically requires it.

In that case, Brown said, one possible scenario would be to consolidate the Spokane offices. The two offices currently serve mining interests in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and parts of California and Nevada.

Brown added that if the bureau remains open but the Spokane offices close, the bureau would make every effort to offer the Spokane employees work at the remaining open offices in Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Albany, Ore.

Richard Grabowski, chief of western field operations for the bureau in Spokane, said mineral resources on federal lands are worth trillions of dollars.

“The closing of the bureau will have a major effect on the government’s ability to understand the resources out there,” Grabowski said.

The Bureau of Mines was created in 1910 to research health and safety issues. As a non-regulatory government agency, it has gained the trust of the most miners, said Ivan Urnovitz, government relations manager for the Northwest Mining Association.

Closure of the bureau would mean a loss of expertise when it comes to analyzing and evaluating the mining industry, Urnovitz said.

“The one-stop shopping will be gone,” said Urnovitz. “The states would have to rely on their own staffs rather than the Bureau of Mines, which means the costs to the states would go up.”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: WHAT’S AT STAKE Jobs: The Bureau of Mines employs 1,900 nationwide, about 170 people in two Spokane offices. Funding: The bureau operated on a budget of $152 million last year. The $87 million in the funding bill is marked for closures. That would “hardly” cover cost of final payroll and severance costs, said Dave Brown, director of external affairs for the bureau.