Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
7/11/2014
In the face of a veto threat from the Obama Administration, the House of Representatives late this week approved its version of the Fiscal Year 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, which funds the Department of Energy’s cleanup program. During floor debate, two lawmakers successfully amended the bill to add a small boost to non-defense environmental cleanup funding, bringing it to a total of approximately $245 million, an increase of $19 million from the Department’s request. Defense environmental cleanup activities, which cover most of DOE’s major cleanup sites, would be funded at approximately $4.8 billion, approximately $527 million below DOE’s request. The bill would not implement a DOE proposal to reauthorize payments into the federal uranium enrichment D&D fund, for which the Department had sought $463 million in defense environmental cleanup funding. The bill would provide approximately $585.98 million for uranium enrichment D&D activities, an increase of $55 million from DOE’s request.
While the House has passed its version of the FY 2015 energy spending bill, the fate of a final version of the bill remains unclear. In a Statement of Administration Policy issued this week, the White House threatened to veto the House bill, expressing concerns over a number of provisions. Such provisions include the elimination of funding for a new federal contribution to the uranium enrichment D&D fund; language that would continue construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site despite DOE’s plans to put the project in ‘cold standby’; and continued funding for the shuttered-Yucca Mountain waste repository, among others.
In addition, questions persist over the path forward for the Senate version of the bill. The bill ran into a roadblock last month due to a disagreement between Democrats and Republicans over a controversial amendment that would scuttle new carbon emissions regulations on power plants. Senate Appropriations Committee leaders cancelled a planned June 19 full committee markup of the bill over the issue, raising questions about the path ahead for the bill. It remains unclear if, or when, the markup will be rescheduled.
More Money for West Valley…
During this week’s debate on the House floor, Reps. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) and Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) were successful in adding an extra $4 million to non-defense cleanup funding provided by the House measure, intended to support the cleanup of the West Valley Demonstration Project site in their home state. Before the amendment, the House bill would have provided approximately $59 million for West Valley, matching DOE’s request. The request, however, represented a cut of approximately $5 million from current funding levels for the site. “The information I received … is that there is a need for consistent funding in this area, because if there is not, the long-term capability and the long-term cost to our country to cleanup these sites up significantly is increased because of the lack of consistence in the funding necessary to go through this tremendous remediation and restabilization efforts at these nuclear sites,” Reed said on the House floor.
…But Not for Portsmouth
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) was unsuccessful, though, in an attempt to amend the House bill to provide more funding for D&D efforts at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Wenstrup’s amendment would have added $15 million in uranium enrichment D&D funding, offset by cuts to funding provided for DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and Departmental administration. In its FY15 budget request, DOE sought $160 million for the Portsmouth D&D project, an increase of approximately $37 million from current funding levels. The House spending bill would go even further and provide $175 million, an increase of $15 million from DOE’s request.
Even so, the Portsmouth D&D project faces a significant budgetary challenge next year due, in large part, to a decrease in the price of uranium. Along with appropriated funding from Congress, DOE pays for D&D work at Portsmouth by providing site contractor Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, LLC, with stocks of uranium, which the contractor then sells and uses the proceeds to help fund cleanup. “Since the price of uranium has dropped significantly since [the] Fukushima [nuclear power plant disaster], additional funding is necessary to make up for the loss of revenue,” Wenstrup said on the House floor in support of his amendment. “Without adequate funding, the Federal Government is leaving a massively contaminated site right in the heartland of our country. A delay in funding for fiscal 2015 only means a higher cost to the government in future years.”
‘It’s the Department’s Fault’ Amendment Didn’t Pass, Rep. Simpson Says
Wenstrup’s amendment was opposed by Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. Simpson cited long-standing concerns among some lawmakers over DOE’s use of excess uranium to help fund cleanup as the basis for his opposition. “The Department’s reliance on its uranium transfers has inappropriately circumvented the appropriations process, has adversely impacted our domestic uranium mining and conversion industry, and is now creating further problems as the market price of uranium continues to drop,” Simpson said.
Simpson went on to say, “I should say it is not Portsmouth’s or the gentleman from Ohio’s fault that they have been using uranium transfers to fund this. It is not the people who are working there; it is not their fault. It’s the Department’s fault, and we have raised concerns for years that that this is in appropriate and illegal. We knew that it was going to come to this when those uranium transfers couldn’t be made anymore because of the price of uranium and other things, and it is the result of the choice of the Department to fund this by using the uranium transfers. Unfortunately, it has come to what we predicted would be a problem when we started raising these concerns with the Department.”
Rep. Lummis Adds Provision on Uranium Transfers
Also during this week’s floor debate, Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) was successful in adding language that would restrict DOE’s ability to conduct uranium transfers if there is a significant drop in price. According to Lummis’ office, the provision would invalidate DOE’s standing transfer authority if there is a 10 percent decrease in the price of uranium and require the Department to perform additional analyses as to whether the transfer impact the domestic uranium industry. Another accepted Lummis amendment blocks funding in the bill from being used for “Department actions that adversely impact the domestic uranium industry or fail to comply with public notice and comment requirements that bind all federal agencies,” a release from her office says.
