Prospects for a permanent 2020 Department of Energy budget dimmed a little on Tuesday in the face of the continued political battle over President Donald Trump’s proposed southern border wall.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Democrats would block a package of appropriations bills that includes the budgets for DOE and the Pentagon because it would also fund the U.S.-Mexico wall.
In a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer said Republicans would not negotiate with the minority over possible changes to the Pentagon spending bill, which includes funding for portions of the wall. That could lead Congress to extend 2019 budgets further into the 2020 federal budget year that began on Oct. 1. The federal government, including DOE, is still funded at prior-year levels under a stopgap continuing resolution that expires on Nov. 21.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) moved on Monday to end debate on the so-called defense minibus that includes the DOE’s budget. That vote could happen later this week and clear the way for the Senate to debate defense and energy spending next week — provided lawmakers can first pass a domestic-funding minibus that does not involve U.S. nuclear waste and weapons.
Senators were slated to vote Wednesday about whether to curtail debate on the domestic spending bill. Any action on the defense bill will wait until after that.
Under the current stopgap budget bill, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, which oversees cleanup of 16 shuttered Cold War nuclear-weapon sites, is funded at an annualized level of just over $7 billion. That is well above the $6.5 billion proposed by the White House in March, less than the nearly $7.5 billion the Senate has proposed for 2020, and about even with the House’s 2020 recommendation.
The National Nuclear Security Administration, the DOE branch that oversees and modernizes the current nuclear arsenal, would receive about $15.2 billion at fiscal 2019 levels: much lower than either the requested $16.5 billion, the House’s proposed $16 billion, or the Senate’s recommended $17 billion.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, regulator of commercial nuclear waste and power operations, would be stuck at the equivalent of just over $910 million: $10 million less than it requested for fiscal 2020, but more than the $900 million offered by the House or the roughly $855 million recommended by the Senate.
