A multi-bill appropriations package that includes fiscal year 2020 funding for interim spent nuclear-fuel storage — but not a permanent repository such as Yucca Mountain — is headed to the House floor on Wednesday.
The package, or minibus, includes many spending bills for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1; it was not clear at deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor when the full House would begin debate on portion of the measure that includes the House Appropriations Committee’s proposed 2020 budget for the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
It is likewise unclear whether proponents of Yucca Mountain, who failed to get the proposed repository funded during a Committee markup last month, would force a vote on the measure during next week’s scheduled floor debate.
On May 20, the House Appropriations Committee approved a $46.6 billion Energy and Water Development spending bill, spiking in the process an amendment that would have provided $74 million requested by the Donald Trump administration for Yucca Mountain.
The legislation as written would provide $47.5 million for integrated management of the nation’s nuclear waste, including $25 million to help move spent reactor fuel now stored on-site at nuclear power plants around the nation into consolidated interim storage.
The Senate, meanwhile, had yet to start work on its own DOE appropriations bill at deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor.
