WASHINGTON — The House and Senate delayed the start of final negotiations on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s fiscal 2019 budget until at least next week, a spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee said.
The House and Senate were supposed to meet Thursday to begin resolving their differences on a three-bill appropriations package that includes the fiscal 2019 budget for the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency, but the meeting was abruptly canceled due to “scheduling conflicts,” the House committee spokesperson said.
The meeting had not been rescheduled at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, but the House committee spokesperson said by email that “we expect it to be next week.”
The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) 2019 budget bill is part of H.R. 5895: a so-called minibus appropriations act for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The Senate proposed about $14.8 billion for the NNSA, while the House came in about $500 million higher at roughly $15.3 billion.
[Click here to see Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor’s chart of the major differences between the House and Senate’s proposed 2019 NNSA budgets.]
[Click here to view the ExchangeMonitor’s National Nuclear Security Administration budget tracker, comparing the White House’s request with Congress’ proposals and the current budget.]
Accounting for most of the difference, the House proposed far more funding than the Senate did for the NNSA’s infrastructure and operations budget, which pays for construction, repairs, maintenance, and upgrades of agency infrastructure.
The Senate proposed $2.8 billion for infrastructure and operations for 2019, which is about 13 percent less than the House’s $3.2-billion proposal and around 8 percent less than the White House’s roughly $3-billion request.
Another difference to resolve: the Senate wants to cancel the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., while the House wants to continue funding the over-budget plutonium-disposal plant.
Overall, however the two chambers 2019 NNSA funding proposals are more similar than different.
Crucially, both sides of the Hill want to fully fund ongoing weapons modernization programs, and provide $65 million to start work on a low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead.
Congress is now closer than it has come in years to passing an NNSA budget on time. Even accounting for lawmakers’ abbreviated summer recess, there were as of Friday still about 50 working days until the start of the 2019 fiscal year, with most of the heavy legislative and political lifting on the agency’s budget bill already out of the way — provided no conflicts more serious than scheduling conflicts arise.
Editor’s note, 07/16/2018, 2:27 p.m. Eastern: the story was corrected to show the House recommended a higher 2019 NNSA budget than did the Senate.
