ARLINGTON, VA —A Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee predicted here Thursday there will be a continuing budget resolution to keep the Department of Energy and the other federal agencies running beyond the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
“We are not going to shut the government down,” Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.) said on the sidelines of the National Cleanup Workshop hosted by the Energy Communities Alliance.
There could be some Republicans in the House of Representatives who might be interested in a shutdown prior to the November midterm elections, Lee said in response to an ExchangeMonitor question.
A continuing resolution would keep DOE’s Office of Environmental Management on the equivalent of fiscal 2022’s $7.6-billion on a proportional basis, with the exception of any specified exceptions.
The Senate Appropriations Committee set the high water mark for fiscal year 2023 National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) budget proposals this year.
The committee in July published a bill that would give NNSA $22.1 billion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. That is some $690 million more than requested and about $870 million more than the full House approved for NNSA as part of a bundle of spending bills passed earlier in the summer.
The Senate committee’s proposal would also provide roughly $1.3 billion, $500 million more than requested, to build the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.
The House’s proposed NNSA budget is the only defense spending bill this year that would meet the White House’s request for the proposed pit factory in Savannah River. Senate Appropriators and authorizers in both chambers wanted to give the South Carolina pit plant substantially more than the Joe Biden administration requested, despite testimony this spring from senior NNSA
