Funding for federal agencies runs out Dec. 8, but Congress is working on another short-term fix to keep the government running for a little while longer, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Thursday.
The new budget year, fiscal 2018, began on Oct. 1, but the federal government for now remains funded at prior-year levels.
“We’re going to obviously have to have a short-term CR [continuing resolution],” Ryan said during his weekly Capitol Hill news conference. “The duration of that CR we’re … in talks with our own members, we’re going to be having a conference with our members and go through all of that. So stay tuned on that.”
One news report from the CQ Roll Call said the stopgap budget bill will extend the 2017 budget only for about two weeks, to Dec. 22.
The effect of yet another continuing resolution on Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear sites was not immediately apparent at press time Friday; spokespersons for some of the agency’s biggest weapons and waste-cleanup contractors, including AECOM, Bechtel, Fluor, and CH2M, either declined to comment on the bill or did not reply to queries.
At the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), another budget stopgap would mean about two more weeks without the roughly $1-billion raise the Donald Trump administration requested for fiscal 2018. The semiautonomous DOE branch was about a $13-billion agency in fiscal 2017.
The continuing resolution would give the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina another two weeks of nominal reprieve. The Trump administration wants to cancel the massive facility, which has been under construction for about 10 years and is designed to turn surplus weapon-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.
The White House wanted to cut the budget for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility by almost 17 percent to $270 million and forbid further construction. The 2017 omnibus budget bill signed in May allowed construction to continue with a budget of about $335 million.
The Department of Energy declined to comment Thursday. Federal agencies typically do not comment on pending legislation, though their legislative affairs departments are routinely in touch with congressional appropriators to ensure projects in need of more funding than a continuing resolution would provide get permission to exceed prior-year budgets.
