Despite lawmakers’ request that appropriators fund the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Site Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) at $150 million or more in fiscal 2017, the House Energy and Water Appropriations Bill, released Tuesday, calls for $103 million in funding for the program.
House lawmakers from Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland in a March 15 letter requested that House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) and Ranking Member Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) restore FUSRAP funding to “historical levels.” According to the letter, funding fluctuated between $140 million and $160 million from 1998 to 2008, and was increased to $240 million in 2009.
FUSRAP was started in 1974 to identify, investigate, and clean up or control sites contaminated by early U.S. atomic weapons and energy programs during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. The House bill meets the Obama administration’s $103 million request for the program for the budget year that begins Oct. 1.
That amount “is an inadequate number, given the enormous increase in remediation and workscope requirements in the face of flat-to-declining annual funding,” the letter states.
The March 15 letter was signed by Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D-Md.), and Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio). FUSRAP oversees sites in all their states. Lawmakers could not immediately be reached for comment.
