March 17, 2014

HOUSE PASSES ‘MINI-CR’ TO FUND NNSA

By ExchangeMonitor

The House voted Friday to fund the National Nuclear Security Administration at Fiscal Year 2013 levels, though the legislation is not expected to gain traction in the Senate. The bill is part of the House’s piecemeal approach to restart funding the government and represents the 15th “mini-CR” passed by the chamber since the lapse of appropriations began Oct. 1. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), the chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, said the bill was needed to avoid furloughs to thousands of contractor employees across the weapons complex, who thus far have been working during the shutdown thanks to carryover funding from FY 2013. “By the end of the month, 90 percent of the personnel at our nuclear weapons sites may be laid off, halting work to keep our nuclear weapons reliable. Once laid off, some of these vital workers may never return,” Frelinghuysen said. “Suspending an ongoing nuclear production operation is no simple task. That interruption will lead to higher costs and only make it more difficult to maintain an aging stockpile. We must act now to prevent disruption of these important nuclear security activities.”

Under the bill, the NNSA’s weapons program would only get a small boost as the language allows it to continue to spend through Dec. 15 at the level of the Fiscal Year 2013 full-year CR, which funded the weapons program at the pre-sequestration level of $7.58 billion thanks to an anomaly, though that remains about $290 million less than the President’s FY 2014 request. USEC would also be allowed to spend at the level of the FY 2013 full-year CR ($100 million) on its American Centrifuge Project, another holdover from the last CR. The NNSA’s nonproliferation program, which did not receive an anomaly in FY 2013, would be funded at a pre-sequestration level of $2.4 billion, well more than the Administration’s $2.1 billion FY 2014 request. The bill would not fund many other parts of the Department of Energy, including cleanup work or the Office of Science.

Senate Democrats have not supported the House’s scattershot approach to funding the government, and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) voiced opposition to the bill on the House floor, calling it insufficient to meet the needs of the weapons complex. “This bill denies these national security labs the funding they need as it locks in the deep cuts of sequester for two more months,” Lujan said. “There is not a member of this body—Democrat or Republican—that says they like the sequester, but my Republican colleagues refuse to lift it. … This piecemeal approach in this bill to the Department of Energy and to the NNSA is picking winners and losers with employees that are going to be furloughed. This is a shame, and it is a sham.”

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