HOUSE APPROPRIATORS TO MARK UP FY14 ENERGY SPENDING BILL TODAY

House appropriators are scheduled to hold a subcommittee markup hearing today on the Fiscal Year 2014 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, which funds the Department of Energy’s cleanup program and the National Nuclear Security Administration, among other programs. The hearing is scheduled to be held in Room 2362-B in the Rayburn House Office Building beginning at 10:30 a.m. “This is a fiscally conservative bill that funds critical national security, jobs, and infrastructure programs,” House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) said in a statement. “In a challenging fiscal environment, we have to prioritize funding, and the Subcommittee chose to address the readiness and safety of the nation’s nuclear stockpile and to invest in critical infrastructure projects to protect lives and property and support economic growth.”

According to a draft version of the bill released yesterday, lawmakers are looking to provide less funding for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management than the Department had sought in its Fiscal Year 2014 budget request. The House bill would provide a total of $4.75 billion in defense environmental cleanup funding, which covers work at most major EM sites—a cut of approximately $570 million from DOE’s request. It remains unclear, though, whether the House-proposed funding level includes the approximately $463 million DOE had sought in defense environmental cleanup funding to put into the uranium enrichment D&D fund. The House bill would provide $194 million in non-defense environmental cleanup funding, a cut of approximately $19 million; and $545 million in uranium enrichment D&D funding, a cut of approximately $10 million from the request. Site-by-site funding amounts in the House bill were not available as of yesterday.