The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to go to conference with the Senate on their respective versions of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2018, and selected its slate of conferees.
The House panel primarily features 31 members of the lower chamber’s Armed Services Committee: 18 Republicans and 13 Democrats. Members of other committees were also selected to work on specific provisions of the legislation.
The House bill passed in July would authorize up to $14.2 billion in spending at the National Nuclear Security Administration for the budget year that began on Oct. 1, a step up from the $13.9 billion requested by the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency.
The Senate version of the legislation, passed in September, would allow up to $14.5 billion for the NNSA to carry out its nuclear stockpile support, nonproliferation, and naval reactor operations.
The agency’s actual funding level would be set by a finalized congressional energy appropriations bill, which has yet to materialize. Through Dec. 8, all federal agencies are funded under a continuing resolution that largely freezes spending levels at fiscal 2017 levels.
Both chambers’ defense authorization bills direct continued construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which when finished would convert 34 metric tons of surplus nuclear-weapon plutonium into commercial reactor fuel. The Trump administration, like the Obama administration before it, has sought to cancel the project in favor of a plutonium processing alternative it says is cheaper and faster.
Senate appropriators have supported the administration’s request for $270 million to wind down construction, in an energy bill that has yet to get a floor vote. The House’s approved DOE funding bill contains $340 million to sustain construction.
The House and Senate authorization bills also include language the administration has objected to regarding the response to Russia’s violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The pact prohibits the United States and Russia from possessing ground-launched ballistic or cruise missiles with flight ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, but Washington believes Moscow has deployed a cruise missile within the banned distance.
The House NDAA calls for a “program of record” for an INF-range missile system and conditioning U.S. adherence to the treaty on Russia’s own compliance. The Senate version would authorize $65 million for a research and development program for a dual-capable, road-mobile, ground-launched missile system within the prohibited range.
