Kenneth Fletcher
NS&D Monitor
6/20/2014
Both House and Senate appropriators are looking to boost funds for Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility construction funding above the Obama Administration’s Fiscal Year 2015 request and aim to prevent use of the funds to put the project into “cold standby.” Citing rising costs for the project, the Department of Energy slashed funding to $196 million in its FY 2015 request and aims to put the plant into cold standby while assessing alternatives for plutonium disposition, a move that has been opposed by many lawmakers. “The idea that MOX is overrunning in cost is very real to me and I think we can control costs but there is no viable alternative,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said at a subcommittee markup hearing this week of the FY 2015 Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bill. “We’re 60 percent—50 percent, depending on who you talk to—through the program, and now is not the time to stop and look for an idea that has no hope of being realized.” He added, “We have some time now to figure out how to make it more cost effective.”
The Administration’s decision earlier this year to suspend the project may eventually be blocked by lawmakers, some of whom see the program’s shutdown as bypassing the Congressional approval process. The Senate spending bill would boost MOX construction funding to $400 million, panel Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said this week following a markup of the bill. The House version of the bill, reported out of the full Appropriations Committee this week, would provide $345 million for MOX, or $149 million above DOE’s budget request. That funding would be used to “sustain the current pace of construction” and “prohibits the use of MOX funding to place the project in cold standby,” according to legislation report language released this week.
MOX is currently the pathway for 34 metric tons of surplus weapons grade plutonium that must be dispositioned under an agreement with Russia. The Administration identified several alternatives for plutonium disposition in a report released in April, and is conducting a more in-depth analysis over the next 12-to-18 months. However, some lawmakers have been skeptical. “Now is not the time to break an agreement with Russia over disposing of the weapons material,” Graham said. “They have 34 metric tons of nuclear weapons material that they’re bound by this agreement to dispose of. God knows we don’t want any more material floating around the world and if the Russians are willing to get rid of some of their stockpile we should take them up on it.”
House: ‘No Value’ In Analyzing Alternatives That Aren’t Feasible
The House panel also criticized DOE’s study of alternatives for plutonium disposition, and directed that an independent lifecycle cost estimate for MOX and downblending of plutonium be completed. “There is no value to continuing to analyze alternatives that are not feasible and do not save costs. Rather, establishing a protracted deadline for making a decision drives up costs, wastes additional taxpayer funds, and delays resolution of project management issues that must be addressed no matter which alternative is selected,” the report accompanying the House spending bill states.
