President Obama's fiscal 2013 budget proposal has prompted a swift rebuke from a Kansas senator who fears it threatens the relocation of a proposed biosecurity facility to the state.

In his proposed budget for the Department of Homeland Security, the president requested no new construction funds for the $650 million National Bio- and Agro-defense Facility being built near Kansas State University. The laboratory would study animal and plant diseases, replacing an aging facility on tiny Plum Island off the coast of Long Island in New York.

Last fiscal year, the administration requested $150 million for the new modernized facility.

"I and most Kansans were surprised, stunned actually, when the president's budget came out on Monday and proposed no construction funds in 2013," Republican Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts said yesterday at a hearing of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee.

Obama has also proposed that a task force be created to determine whether the new facility is needed.

The federal government has already spent more than $100 million to design and get ready to build the facility, while the state of Kansas has promised to foot more than $200 million of the bill. A site for the new facility has already been cleared at Kansas State University.

All the while, Roberts said, Plum Island is "in a sense starting to fall apart" while repair costs continue to mount. The facility was built in the 1950s on the site of a former U.S. Army fort.

Despite the administration's apparent backing off from the project, both Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said yesterday at separate Capitol Hill hearings that the Kansas facility remained a priority.

"We're going to continue to work with you, and work with the committee, and work with Congress, to make sure folks understand the significance of this facility," Vilsack told Roberts, "to make sure that they understand the concerns we have with the Plum Island facility and some of the needed repairs that would be required."

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has been a supporter of the relocation and said in a statement that he has gotten reassurance from Napolitano that the administration does not plan to kill the project because of its location in Kansas.

Critics have warned that an escaped disease from the research facility could spread rapidly among livestock in the state. They have argued instead for upgrading Plum Island.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) yesterday applauded the president's proposal to halt funding for the project.

"I do believe that on the basis of national security, the safety of our population, the safety of our livestock herds and the probability that it would be cheaper and better to do this off the coast of America some place," Harkin said, "a redesigned and rebuilt Plum Island would be better for our country."