By Harry Dunphy, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) --- Aid to Russia should be eliminated if it persists in helping Cuba build a Soviet-designed nuclear power plant, a Republican lawmaker said Thursday. A Clinton administration official insisted there is no evidence the plant, begun 17 years ago, is still being built.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., a member of the House International Relations Committee, said Russia either is behaving irresponsibly or is "turning a blind eye to a rogue operation in which parts are being sold secretly'' for the plant in the central Cuba city of Cienfuegos.

Rohrabacher offered no evidence of activity at the plant but said, "I know about it and they know about it. It's something we can't ignore'' because of the potential safety risk to the U.S. and Cuban people. He said his information came from intelligence reports.

Cuba's trade minister, Ricardo Cabrisas, said last month that Cuba and Russia will try to forge ahead in completing the power plant after scuttling a Russian plan to invite other countries to join the project. Cuba began building the plant in 1981 with assistance from the then-Soviet Union.

U.S. lawmakers and environmentalists warned two years ago that the $800 million Juragua nuclear plant was being built so shoddily that it could unleash another Chernobyl-like disaster that could threaten Florida and other states along the Gulf of Mexico. Plant workers who have defected to the United States have issued similar warnings.

Richard Morningstar, the administration's special adviser on new nations that were once part of the Soviet Union, said at a House hearing that, despite the Cuban official's announcement, there was no specific information that construction of the plant was continuing.

"Our activities are geared to mothballing the plant,'' Morningstar told the committee. "We are watching the situation closely.''

Morningstar and Donald Pressly, assistant administrator of the Agency for International Development, testified in support of an administration request to increase spending next year from $725 million to $925 million on projects to help former Soviet republics become stable market democracies.

© 1998 Associated Press.