Key environmental construction projects are nearly complete at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state and its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and that’s reflected in a House Appropriations funding plan for fiscal 2025.
The budget proposal, details of which House appropriators released Monday in a bill report, was scheduled to be marked up Tuesday at 9:00 .a.m Eastern time by the full House Appropriations Committee.
The House Appropriations Committee starts consideration Tuesday of a subcommittee bill to fund DOE’s nuclear cleanup branch at $8.3 billion during fiscal 2025, roughly $160 million less than what Congress enacted for fiscal 2024.
The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee’s bill, passed by that panel June 28, would provide $7.29 billion for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management’s Defense Environmental Cleanup.
That’s $153 million less than Congress enacted for fiscal 2024 and $72 million more than President Joe Biden’s administration sought for the spending year starting Oct. 1.
DOE’s Hanford Site would again receive nearly $3 billion in fiscal 2025 through its two operations offices, according to the bill report. The two offices would together be earmarked for about $2.99 billion up incrementally from the $2.93 billion in fiscal 2024.
Hanford’s Office of River Protection would receive $2 billion under the spending plan, equal to DOE’s fiscal 2025 request and more than the $1.9 billion level enacted by Congress for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. Meanwhile the subcommittee bill would keep the Richland Operations Office at the $984 million level requested by the administration but below the roughly $1 billion enacted during fiscal 2024.
Under the bill, River Protection would receive $466 million toward commissioning the Bechtel-built Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, which is what the administration requested, up from $50 million in that line item currently. DOE wants the plant to start solidifying some of the less radioactive liquid waste into a glass starting in 2025.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., which is winding down a major infrastructure project, would see its appropriation reduced to $425 million from the $464 million for fiscal 2025. Most of that is attributed to the construction funding for the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System decreasing to $10 million from $44 million in fiscal 2024.
