Congress was expected to vote on a final fiscal 2018 budget this week, but the text of the legislation — including spending details for Department of Energy nuclear programs — still were not available late Monday.
The Department of Energy (DOE), like all federal agencies except the Pentagon, will run out of money after midnight March 23 unless Congress passes some kind of budget before then. The federal government has operated on a series of short-term funding measures since the fiscal year began on Oct. 1, 2017.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) indicated Monday he expected a vote on a permanent budget for all federal agencies — a combination of multiple spending bills called an omnibus — before the deadline arrives.
This week, the #Senate will take up an omnibus spending bill that builds on the bipartisan funding agreement reached in Feb. It will provide our military w the stable funding they need to meet emerging challenges & also strengthen our fight against the scourge of opioid addiction
— Leader McConnell (@SenateMajLdr) March 19, 2018
Politico reported Monday the House would vote on the omnibus Wednesday, with the Senate to follow. If lawmakers fail to reach an accord on an omnibus and resort to giving agencies yet another extension of the fiscal 2017 budgets, it would have to be at least a two-week stopgap — Congress is scheduled for a spring recess after Friday.
For 2018, the Donald Trump administration requested about $14 billion for the active weapons programs managed by DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration; roughly $6.6 billion for Cold War nuclear cleanup helmed by the agency’s Office of Environmental Management; and roughly $950 million for the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates waste from commercial nuclear power plants.
Compared with the 2017 budgets that have essentially been extended since Oct. 1, those would be increases of about 8 percent and 1 percent for the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Environmental Management office, and an increase of about 1.5 percent for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
