The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted 82-15 to pass a stopgap budget to keep the federal government operating for nearly two months into fiscal 2020 in the absence of a full-year spending plan.
The House approved the continuing resolution last week, and President Donald Trump is expected to sign it ahead of the Oct. 1 start of the next federal budget year.
At that point, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other federal agencies will be funded through Nov. 21 at current fiscal 2019 levels.
That would leave the nuclear industry regulator with $911 million on an annualized basis, which is $10.1 million less than it requested for fiscal 2020. But it is more than appropriators in the House and Senate appear inclined to give in the upcoming year: respectively, just under $900 million and just over $854 million.
The continuing resolution means the NRC for now also will again not receive any money to resume its review of the Department of Energy’s license application for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. Congress zeroed out both agencies’ requests for licensing funding for 2019. Both chambers appear ready to do so again in their energy and water development appropriations bills for 2020, in which the NRC proposed $38.5 million for licensing.
The House in June passed its energy and water bill within a larger “minibus” package of appropriations measures. The Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this month sent its version of the legislation for a floor vote that has not yet been scheduled. The continuing resolution gives the upper chamber time to wrap up its appropriations and then negotiate final spending levels with the House.
Meanwhile, House and Senate conferees are continuing negotiations on the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. Within a long list of defense policy measures, both NDAAs authorize no funding for disposal of defense nuclear waste – either via Yucca Mountain or interim storage. The Trump administration requested authorization for $26 million in spending on disposal of waste from defense nuclear operations.
