The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday voted 30-26, largely along party lines, to approve a budget bill that would provide more than $8.3 billion for the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch in fiscal 2025.
There was little mention of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management during the hour-plus markup. The measure will next be considered by the full House of Representatives, which had not scheduled a vote as of Tuesday evening.
The House Rules Committee will convene the week of July 22 to write rules of floor debate for the energy and water bill. The deadline to submit amendments to the committee is July 16.
The measure, which passed the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee in June, would provide less than the 2024 appropriations of $8.5 billion but more than the $8.2 billion requested by the administration of President Joe Biden (D).
The measure provides more than $7.1 billion for Defense Environmental Cleanup, which accounts for most of the Environmental Management office’s budget. That is less than the nearly $7.3 billion enacted in fiscal 2024 but more than the $7.05 billion White House request.
Non-defense Environmental spending would be set at $324 million for the budget year starting Oct. 1. That is less than fiscal 2024’s $342 million but more than the $315 million sought by the White House.
The Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund would receive $864 million for fiscal 2025 up from the $855 million enacted in fiscal 2024 and the $854 million sought by the administration.
The energy and water bill would also prohibit funds to implement DOE’s Justice40 Initiative, something the fiscal 2024 subcommittee bill also sought to accomplish.
Some of the bill’s proposed funding changes also reflect the near-completion of key environmental construction projects at DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state and its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, and that’s reflected in the bill report,
DOE’s Hanford Site would again receive nearly $3 billion in fiscal 2025 through its two operations offices, according to the report. The two offices would together be earmarked for about $2.99 billion up incrementally from the $2.93 billion in fiscal 2024.
Hanford’s Office of River Protection would receive $2 billion under the spending plan, equal to DOE’s fiscal 2025 request and more than the $1.9 billion level enacted by Congress for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. Meanwhile the subcommittee bill would keep the Richland Operations Office at the $984 million level requested by the administration but below the roughly $1 billion enacted during fiscal 2024.
Under the bill, River Protection would receive $466 million toward commissioning the Bechtel-built Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, which is what the administration requested, up from $50 million in that line item currently. DOE wants the plant to start solidifying some of the less radioactive liquid waste into a glass starting in 2025.
WIPP is winding down a major infrastructure project, would see its appropriation reduced to $425 million from the $464 million for fiscal 2025. Most of that is attributed to the construction funding for the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System decreasing to $10 million from $44 million in fiscal 2024.
Elsewhere around the old weapons complex, cleanup spending for the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, represented in the subcommittee Chair Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), would be $621 million. The figure would be $57 million more than what Congress enacted for 2024 and $67 million more than DOE requested.
Nuclear cleanup-related funds for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina would remain steady in fiscal 2025 although DOE’s Office of Environmental Management will relinquish daily management of the 310-square-mile property to the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Savannah River would receive more than $1.6 billion in Environmental Management funds in fiscal 2025, down from the $1.64 billion enacted level for fiscal 2024, according to the table. But it would be more than the $1.56 billion requested by DOE for 2025.
Environmental Management spending at the Idaho National Laboratory would be funded at $492 million, which represents about $14 million more than the fiscal 2024 enacted level and about $33 million above what the White House requested.
FUSRAP
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) would see a big budget reduction in fiscal 2025, under the energy and water appropriations bill passed this week. FUSRAP, would be funded at $200 million or equal to the administration’s request but 50% below the $300 million enactment in 2024.
FUSRAP remediates certain low-level radioactive materials and mixed wastes at sites contaminated as a result of the nation’s early efforts to develop atomic weapons, according to the bill.
“The Committee continues to support the prioritization of sites, especially those that are nearing completion,” according to the bill report.
DNFSB
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), a small agency charged with providing outside safety advice to the secretary of energy, would be funded at $45 million in the new fiscal year. That’s more than the $42 million enacted in 2024 but less than the $47 million sought by the administration.