The House of Representatives on Friday morning adopted by voice vote a motion to go to conference on the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), legislation the House passed in May and the Senate a month later.
The House and Senate will next name their conferees to the committee, which will then develop a final bill to send to President Barack Obama. Among those will be Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who announced just before press time that he was appointed to the conference committee. A House aide said earlier conferees are expected to be appointed after press time.
The House bill would authorize $13.3 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), including $9.6 billion for weapons activities and $1.9 billion for defense nuclear nonproliferation. The Senate version would authorize $12.9 billion for the NNSA, including $9.2 billion for weapons activities and $1.9 billion for defense nuclear nonproliferation.
Both versions of the bill were met with veto threats from the White House. While the Senate and House legislation direct the NNSA to continue constructing the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to convert surplus weapon-usable plutonium into commercial fuel, Obama’s fiscal 2017 budget proposed shutting down the facility in favor of an alternative plutonium dilution and disposal method.
