The appropriations package agreed upon by a House-Senate conference committee this week makes it official: The Energy Department will not barter excess government uranium in fiscal 2019 to fund environmental remediation at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio.
The multi-agency appropriations bill would provide $841 million for DOE’s Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund, which pays for cleanup at three former gaseous diffusion plants in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Lawmakers boosted the portion of the fund designated for work at Portsmouth by $60 million above the Trump administration request, to $366 million, to offset suspension of the uranium barter program.
The Energy Department “shall not barter, transfer, or sell uranium in order to generate additional funding for Portsmouth cleanup that is in excess of the amount of funding provided in this Act,” according to the from the conferees.
The conference package funds Portsmouth decontamination and decommissioning at $366 million for the budget year that begins Oct. 1, which is also above the $342 million enacted for fiscal 2018.
In addition, DOE would get $41 million for construction of the On-Site Waste Disposal Cell at the Piketon, Ohio, facility, the amount the administration proposed and incrementally more than the almost $39 million provided in 2018.
The Office of River Protection at the Hanford Site in Washington state would get about $1.57 billion, far more than the $1.44 billion sought by the administration and slightly more than the $1.56 billion budgeted in fiscal 2018. Within the ORP funding, the Waste Isolation and Treatment Plant gets $15 million, which is what was requested and also more than the $8 million allotted for 2018.
Hanford’s Richland Office will get $865 million, well above the $658 million sought by the administration and just above the $863 million in 2018.
The conference bill in total would provide $7.2 billion for DOE Cold War environmental cleanup, $53 million above the fiscal 2018 enacted level and $578 million above the administration ‘s request. This includes $6 billion for defense environmental cleanup . The bill also includes $310 million for non-defense environmental cleanup.
The full House and Senate could this week approve the compromise “minibus” spending bill covering DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and several other federal agencies.
