The House of Tuesday concluded debate about but delayed a vote on a bill that includes more than 90 pages of federal nuclear policy reforms.
Under clause eight of House voting rules XX, a roll-call vote on the reforms, which have been added to an unrelated bill already passed by the Senate, was postponed. Votes on several other bills on Tuesday were also postponed under the same rule, setting the stage for a marathon of roll-call votes later this week on these bills.
During the evening debate that began after 5:00 p.m. Eastern time, both Democrats and Republicans on the House floor said they supported the bill, which began as a short proposal about fire safety and was amended to include more than 90 pages of nuclear-energy and legislation.
Among those to support the amended bill on the floor Tuesday evening was Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, which had jurisdiction of the bill used as a vehicle for the nuclear reforms.
“This legislation is a continuation of the strong bipartisan support that Congress has shown towards the development and demonstration of advanced nuclear reactors,” Lofgren said in a floor speech carried live and recorded on House.gov.
If passed by the House, the Fire Grants and Safety Act of 2023 will head back to the Senate, where members of the upper chamber could speed it along to President Joe Biden’s (D) desk by concurring with the bipartisan nuclear amendments the House stapled on to the measure.
The unamended fire bill already passed the Senate and now combines a pair of nuclear policy proposals: Sen. Shelley Capito’s (R-W.Va.) Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act of 2023, which the Senate allowed as an amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, and the House’s Atomic Energy Advancement Act, which passed the lower chamber 365-36 in February.
