Senate to Vote on Bill Next Week
Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
10/2/2015
Amid Capitol Hill rumblings of a possible cancellation of the beleaguered Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 passed this week by the House would require Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz to re-baseline project construction and support activities for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility for fiscal 2017, and to carry out MOX construction in fiscal 2016 at the Obama administration-requested funding level of $345 million.
Overall, the bill would authorize $5.1 billion for defense environmental cleanup, slightly less than the administration’s $5.2 billion request. Additionally, the bill would allow $8.8 billion for National Nuclear Security Administration weapons activities, compared to the administration’s $8.85 billion fiscal 2016 request, and it would make available $1.942 billion for defense nuclear nonproliferation, $1,000 more than Obama’s request.
Furthermore on MOX, the bill would authorize another $5 million that the administration did not request, for an analysis of alternatives on plutonium disposition alternatives, according to the report. “The conferees direct that the analysis of alternatives be comprehensive with regard to potentially cost-effective alternatives, and to include as alternatives various options for disposal, including costs and timelines associated with options for down-blending, immobilization, disposal in canisters, and deep borehole disposal,” the report states.
The administration reportedly is weighing whether to cancel MOX construction. While MOX contractor CB&I AREVA MOX Services is building 4 percent of the planned facility per year, several sources with knowledge of the situation have referenced a Sept. 18 high-level meeting on plutonium disposition at the White House as one possible sign that the Obama administration could soon cancel the project. The meeting reportedly convened top administration officials, including Defense Department and NNSA brass.
In accord with a 2000 nonproliferation agreement with Russia, the MOX plant is to be used to process 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium, but there has been increasing talk of instead “downblending” the material. The Energy Department has chartered several recent reviews that have identified MOX’s primary alternative as the most cost-effective and practical way forward. MOX supporters counter that 70 percent of the facility is already done, and that it would be tough to renegotiate the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement with Russia, given current geopolitical circumstances.
Yet the most likely progression of this situation could equate to Obama attempting to stop the program in February, according to some officials. “I think the most logical move for the administration would be a $0 funding request in the president’s budget for FY17,” one congressional staffer said. Another possible move in the near future could be White House issuance of a stop work order, the staffer said, but NNSA has reportedly denied the existence of any such plans to congressional staffers. Responding to a question of whether the administration plans to zero out funding or to simply stop MOX, National Security Council spokesman Myles Caggins said by email: “We have nothing to report at this time.” But NNSA spokeswoman Shelley Laver said DOE has not changed its MOX budget request for fiscal 2016 since it was published in February.
