The House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee is scheduled Wednesday to mark up the bill that includes the fiscal 2018 budgets for the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The markup will be held in room 2362-B of the Rayburn House Office Building, according to a subcommittee notice.
The Donald Trump administration proposed cutting DOE’s budget by about 9 percent year over year for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 to some $28 billion. Within the total, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management would receive a roughly 1-percent increase to about $6.5 billion, while the National Nuclear Security Administration would get more than a 7.5-percent bump to about $14 million.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission budget would be cut almost 5 percent to about $952 million, under the administration’s request.
Notably, the Trump administration requested $120 million within DOE and $30 million within NRC to resume the Energy Department’s application to license Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., as a permanent disposal site for commercial and defense nuclear waste.
The bill to be marked up Wednesday would be the first opportunity for lawmakers to acquiesce to the administration’s request.
Support for Yucca Mountain is strongest among House GOP members. Rep Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the Appropriations panel in charge of DOE’s budget, backs the project.
Simpson’s counterpart in the Senate, Appropriations energy and water subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) also supports Yucca, but favors moving spent nuclear waste away from the power plants that generated it and consolidating it in yet-to-be-built temporary storage facilities to be run by private contractors.
Wednesday’s House budget hearing is set to begin at 11 a.m. Eastern time.
