Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
9/12/2014
House lawmakers are pushing back action on a short-term Continuing Resolution necessary to keep funding the federal government at the start of Fiscal Year 2015 as the President this week requested that authorization to take action against ISIS in Iraq and Syria be included in the CR. The CR would fund most Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration programs at Fiscal Year 2014 levels through Dec. 11. The House Rules Committee had been scheduled to consider the measure Sept. 10, but the panel’s hearing has been postponed indefinitely as lawmakers work to negotiate addition of the requested language.
The short-term CR includes a pair of funding anomalies to prevent hundreds of layoffs at DOE’s Portsmouth site and to aid in recovery activities from a truck fire and radiological release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, but it does not include a funding anomaly for the NNSA’s weapons program. The Administration pushed for three DOE-related anomalies (it did not receive one to begin upgrading a spent fuel storage facility at Fort St. Vrain in Colorado), but did not push for one for the NNSA’s weapons program because it is believed the program can weather the first two months of the fiscal year at FY 2014 levels before the funding becomes a problem. “We have reached the point where a Continuing Resolution is necessary to keep the government functioning and avoid another shutdown. It is a critical piece of legislation, and my Committee has crafted the bill in a responsible, restrained way that should draw wide support in the House and Senate,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said in a statement. “This bill is free of controversial riders, maintains current levels, and does not seek to change existing federal policies.”
NNSA Has a Lot of ‘Flexibility Internally’
The Obama Administration requested $8.31 billion for the NNSA’s weapons program in FY 2015, a $533.9 million increase over FY 2014 enacted levels, but the agency is believed to have some spending flexibility and programs like the B61 refurbishment, W76 refurbishment and Uranium Processing Facility are not expected to be significantly impacted by the CR. “They’ve got a lot of flexibility internally,” one Congressional staffer told NS&D Monitor. “If it goes much longer than December, they’re going to need some changes, but in the time we’re looking at they’ve got the money they need.”
The NNSA’s nonproliferation account doesn’t need a funding anomaly because the Obama Administration requested $1.55 billion for FY 2015, down $398.4 million from FY 2014, though questions remain about how the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility will be treated under the CR. The Administration requested $221 million for the project in FY 2015, up from the $343.5 million the project received in FY 2014, and said it planned to put the project in “cold standby,” but it has backed off of those plans in recent months over objections from the South Carolina Congressional delegation. Lawmakers have said they expect construction to continue under the CR, but DOE has not formally committed to a plan for FY 2015.
