Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) took over as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, but the leadership of the subcommittee in charge of the Department of Energy’s annual budget bills has not changed.
Shelby replaces Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), who retired April 1 due to ailing health.
In a press announcement, the senior senator from Alabama said Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) will respectively remain chair and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee.
The Senate had not announced any hearings on the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget request at deadline Tuesday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. In the House, Appropriations subcommittees have held preliminary budget hearings for DOE and its nuclear programs, but have not yet published their recommended 2019 budget for the agency.
The White House requested $30.6 billion for DOE in 2019: roughly 1 percent lower than what the agency received in the 2018 omnibus spending bill signed into law last month. The White House prepared its 2018 budget request before Congress erased spending caps for that fiscal year.
The request includes: just over $15 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration, roughly a 3-percent increase from 2018; and $6.6 billion for the Office of Environmental Management mission to clean up Cold War nuclear-weapon waste, or some 7.5 percent less than the 2018 omnibus.
The request also includes $120 million for Yucca Mountain: the same amount the White House requested last year to help DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy resume its application to license the Nye County, Nev., site as a permanent nuclear waste repository.
