Thanks to emergency funding from Congress, the Department of Energy’s civilian nuclear power program will get about what the White House asked for in 2023 under a proposed spending plan unveiled by congressional appropriators early Tuesday morning.
Under usual 2023 appropriations, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) should get around $1.5 billion from the spending bill, some $200 million less than requested and the roughly $1.6 billion NE was appropriated for the 2022 fiscal year.
However, the omnibus budget proposed an additional $300 million in emergency funds for the office, bringing the program’s total proposed fiscal 2023 appropriation up to around $1.8 billion
The omnibus would also greenlight around $29 million for DOE’s nuclear fuel cycle laboratory research and development subprogram,$18 million less than the White House’s $47 million request.
The bill would again refuse to grant another $45 million request to fund NE’s Versatile Test Reactor project, which also went unfunded in 2022.
Meanwhile, NE’s Integrated Waste Management System line, part of the Fuel Cycle Research and Development subprogram, would receive around $53 million under the omnibus, consistent with the White House’s request and an increase of $35 million or so from the 2022 appropriation.
DOE had proposed moving funding for its ongoing interim storage inquiry under the Integrated Waste Management program and away from its Nuclear Waste Disposal account for the 2023 fiscal year.
In the omnibus bill’s explanatory statement, congressional appropriations chastised the agency for attempting such a funding shuffle without prior approval from Capitol Hill. “The Department may not repurpose or re-scope projects identified in control points without prior congressional notification,” the bill said.
Elsewhere, NE’s Used Nuclear Fuel Disposition Research and Development line would remain about flat under the omnibus at around $47 million, a decrease of $3 million or so from the $50 million the subprogram got in the previous fiscal year and only about $125,000 more than requested.
Outside of DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was approved for the $137 million or so it requested. The government’s nuclear-power safety regulator, NRC planned to collect most of its required funding — roughly $775 million for fiscal 2023 — from its licensees.
The independent federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, meanwhile, would get its requested appropriation of around $4 million. The board is tasked with ensuring the scientific and technical integrity of nuclear waste disposal, storage and transportation projects undertaken by DOE.
Congress has funded federal agencies at their 2022 levels since Oct. 1 via a string of stopgap budgets known as continuing resolutions. In a statement of administration policy Tuesday afternoon, President Joe Biden (D) said he would sign the bill as soon as Congress could send it to him. The House and Senate had not voted on the bill as of Tuesday afternoon.
