EDINBURG, Texas, May 25 (UPI) -- Though on the road to tout administration efforts to rejuvenate Southwest border communities, President Clinton went to great lengths to assure Congress and the nation he has taken steps to better protect U.S. nuclear technology. Clinton was traveling today when the long-awaited report by a House select committee was publicly released, with the dramatic determination that China has stolen design secrets on the most advanced U.S. nuclear weaponry and used them to help develop warheads and a long-range missile that could be tested this year. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart was quick to respond, stating that the administration does not agree ``with all of the report's analysis'' and taking issue with many of its calls for new legislation. But, Lockhart said, the administration does share the desire to ensure ``that U.S. national secrets are protected.'' ``We found most of the recommendations constructive and we are in the process of implementing them,'' he said. As Clinton was headed to this border town for a fifth annual White House Community Empowerment Conference, before beginning a Florida vacation with his wife, the White House released a lengthy rebuttal to the report, which was submitted to Clinton in classified form in January. Including many newspaper accounts and written defenses by various top officials, the package was intended to blunt criticism that the administration had moved too slowly in the wake of allegations of Chinese espionage at U.S. national laboratories. It cited again each action the administration already has announced in response to the scandal, which has further strained U.S.-Sino relations after embarrassing disclosures of campaign donations to Democrats. Most notably, Clinton issued a presidential directive early last year setting in place stricter security measures at the Department of Energy, which oversees the labs. But though presenting a painstaking examination of the more than two decades of developments that culminated in the report's findings, it largely left unanswered why after learning in 1995 that China had obtained sensitive U.S. information in the mid-1980s, triggering the Los Alamos National Laboratory espionage investigation, it took until 1998 for tighter security measures to be put in place. ``The administration is deeply concerned about the threat that China and other countries are seeking to acquire sensitive nuclear information from the U.S. national laboratories,'' the rebuttal stated. ``In 1997, the administration recognized the need to respond to this threat.'' The administration and congressional panel parted on the need for legislation to tighten security measures and export controls. Itemizing 28 of the panel's recommendations, the White House said it agreed with 16 and was in the progress of implementing them. Nine others were said to be already completed. But in nine other instances, the administration stated it disagreed with the committee recommendation, in most cases with calls for legislation requiring such things as binding controls on exports or regular reports to Congress by the Executive Branch. The White House also said the FBI and CIA would release their own assessments of Chinese espionage by the end of this month.  