The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee needed just 30 minutes Tuesday to advance its latest funding bill for consideration by the full committee.
The proposal would provide Energy Department nuclear cleanup with $7.46 billion for fiscal 2021, roughly equal to the amount appropriated for fiscal 2020, which ends Sept. 30, and an increase of $1.4 billion from the request submitted in February by the Donald Trump administration.
The DOE Environmental Management office funding pays for remediation at 16 Cold War and Manhattan Project sites.
Subcommittee members Tuesday proposed no amendments to the $49.6 billion appropriations legislation covering the Department of Energy and other agencies. On Monday, the full committee will mark up the energy and water package.
The Senate Appropriations Committee at deadline had not released any draft budget language for the Energy Department for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.
If Congress passes the House appropriation as is, defense environmental cleanup funding would be set at $6.3 billion, $66 million above the line item for the current fiscal year and $1.3 billion above the $5 billion White House request.
Non-defense cleanup would receive $315 million, $39 million above the $276 million request and $4 million less than the current $319 million level. The Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning (UED&D) Fund would be set at $821.6 million for the year, an increase of $15 million from the $806.2 million request, but below the $881 million 2020 budget.
The Trump administration initially proposed $6.5 billion for Environmental Management in fiscal 2020, before the final figure was increased almost $1 billion by congressional appropriators.
The bill released Monday afternoon does not include specific funding levels for each of the Environmental Management properties. The Appropriations Committee at deadline Friday had also not released the detailed legislative report for the measure.
The bill does list $2.7 billion in funding for projects at certain locations. For example: The Hanford Site in Washington state would get $941 million for infrastructure improvements, tank farm infrastructure, and other work; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina would get $711 million for work including utility system upgrades and the H Canyon Basin Dewatering Project; and the Idaho Site would receive $240 million, with over half directed to expedited cleanup, decontamination, decommissioning, and groundwater activities.
Some of the funding does appear to be under the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, and other GOP lawmakers complained about hundreds of millions in supposed emergency funding being spread around the various House bills.
Simpson also noted that the spending plan included no fund to advance the license application for the always controversial geologic repository for high-level defense waste and spent nuclear fuel at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.
Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) noted afterward that the bill instead provides $27.5 million at DOE focused on advancing interim storage of the nation’s nuclear waste. That is the amount requested by the Trump administration, which is forgoing any effort to revive the Yucca Mountain project this year.
The House bill would in total provide $41 billion for the Department of Energy, including $18 billion for its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), roughly $2 billion less than what was requested by the White House.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), which provides recommendations on public health and safety issues at Department of Energy defense nuclear facilities, would receive $31 million under the House panel’s bill, level with the fiscal 2020 funding, but $2.2 million above the administration request.
Los Alamos DP Road Cleanup Would Receive $50M Under House Bill
The House Appropriations spending package passed Tuesday would provide $50 million for the DOE Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico to clean up recently discovered contamination along a nearby public road.
The money for investigation and remediation of an area along DP Road in Los Alamos County would be provided if Congress concludes it is being used for “an emergency requirement” under the 1985 Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, according to language in the bill.
Simpson protested that GOP members were not consulted on the bill’s emergency funds, although he did not mention Los Alamos or other specific examples.
DP Road is part of a 28-acre parcel of land, which includes the site of a planned housing development, transferred from LANL to Los Alamos County in 2016 after the Energy Department determined it had been fully remediated. But in February, material contaminated by uranium and plutonium was unearthed by a contractor for Los Alamos County removing an old sewer line in preparation for a planned low-income housing development.
At the request of the county government, DOE crews removed a couple drums of contaminated debris from the site, fenced off the area, and set up air monitoring around the location of the digging.
In June, the New Mexico Environment Department told DOE the contamination was more extensive than initially thought, and called on the federal agency to expedite its analysis and cleanup of the site. The state urged the federal agency to submit a plan later this month that would include soil sampling at the site.
Los Alamos County Manager Harry Burgess said in a Thursday email that a National Nuclear Security Administration contractor has finished excavating around the sewer line. The housing development is proceeding and is subsequently scheduled to tie into this new sewer infrastructure in August, Burgess said.
