Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has opened the first of several centers proposed to provide business help and advice in Russia's closed nuclear cities, despite cutbacks in federal money for related projects.

The Department of Energy asked Congress for $30 million for its Nuclear Cities Initiative in 2000, but after a critical report from the General Accounting Office in February, it received only $7.5 million. In 1999, the program received $12.5 million.

The new business center is part of a DOE program to help create jobs in private enterprises for Russian nuclear workers who might otherwise be tempted to sell their knowledge of nuclear weapons to rogue nations or terrorists.

The GAO report looked primarily at the 5-year-old Initiative for Proliferation Prevention, which also tries to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, but the report also included the new Nuclear Cities Initiative.

The report criticized DOE for potentially subsidizing faltering economies for years instead of stimulating growth. It also questioned whether enough of the money was actually reaching Russia or was being used in the United States.

None of the 79 individual projects the GAO inspected for the report was connected to PNNL. However, the lab didn't get some of its proposed Nuclear Initiative Cities projects funded, as Congress grew nervous about DOE's programs to help the former Soviet Union.

PNNL received $3 million for Nuclear Cities Initiative programs in 1999 and will receive $1.3 million in 2000.

For instance, because of the cuts the Richland lab won't be able to proceed with a $500,000 energy efficiency project for Snezhinsk in western Siberia. The city has not had enough energy to expand its business base and is spending money on energy costs that could be used for economic development.

However, PNNL will proceed with plans to develop business centers. The first center opened earlier this month is in Zheleznogorsk, a community that shares similarities with the Tri-Cities.

The city, with 100,000 people in south-central Siberia, was founded after World War II to process weapons-grade plutonium. Like Hanford, it produced plutonium during the Cold War years, when the Russian city was known only as Krasnoyarsk-26, a postal designation for a city that wasn't on any maps.

Today, only one of its three reactors operates, and is used to provide energy for the town. The community is described by DOE officials as charming and villagelike, built on a picturesque artificial lake.

Once its residents were given privileges such as luxury goods for working in a secret nuclear weapons complex barricaded from the rest of Russian society in a remote corner of the nation. But since 1994, there's been a 38 percent drop in availability of highly technical jobs, according to DOE.

As Russia shrinks its nuclear weapons complex, it has asked DOE to share lessons learned in shrinking the U.S. nuclear complex.

"This invitation for Energy Department experts to help nuclear scientists in Russia's formerly secret nuclear materials production city of Zheleznogorsk is unprecedented," said Energy Secretary Bill Richardson in written comments. "It signals a strong commitment by both the United States and Russia to do whatever it takes to contain the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons."

However, the official opening of the first business center in Zheleznogorsk was marred by the absence of U.S. Ambassador James Collins because of a disagreement over continuing Russian mistrust of U.S. intentions. Collins was expected to cut the ribbon at the finance center.

PNNL representatives who helped open the center were still in Russia this week, but The New York Times reported Collins angrily canceled his visit after Russian authorities barred him from bringing his science adviser or inspecting other U.S.-Russian projects at the nuclear site.

Richardson protested the Russian restrictions in terms so strong that Yevgeny Adamov, the Russian minister of atomic energy, stormed out of the room at a conference both were attending in Colorado, the paper reported.

The first of the U.S.-financed centers opened despite the disagreement and will offer business resources to displaced Russian nuclear scientists, engineers and technicians. It will be staffed by Russians.

Plans call for coordinating proposed economic development efforts and those already under way with city and local officials. It will serve as a resource for new businesses by providing training for workers and by helping with strategic planning for businesses.

The center also will conduct an economic assessment of Zheleznogorsk to determine what businesses are making or losing money, what skills are in demand and what businesses would be likely to succeed. It plans to guide businesses to financial backing available both in Russia and internationally.

The Zheleznogorsk center is the first of three such centers on which PNNL is coordinating planning. Centers are expected to open in 2000 in the closed Russian nuclear cities of Sarov and Snezhinsk. Although DOE would like to expand the business centers to 10 closed cities, plans are on hold until the initial projects prove themselves.

PNNL already has experience working with the Russian business community, developed while modeling ground water contamination in the West Siberian Basin and improving the safety of Soviet-designed nuclear power plant reactors. It also has sent technical specialists to Russia to control nuclear materials and help with other business creation programs.