March 17, 2014

MORE DETAILS EMERGE ABOUT HOUSE E&W CUTS TO NNSA, EM

By ExchangeMonitor

House appropriators are set to cut $152.8 million from the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plutonium disposition account over concerns about massive increases to the cost and schedule baseline looming on the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, NW&M Monitor has learned. The House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee marked up the bill last week, but only released top-line funding levels. The full committee is expected to mark up the bill Wednesday, and more details have emerged about several of the committee’s funding choices. Specifically, House Appropriators are concerned that the $4.86 billion project could be facing a $600 to $900 million increase and miss its completion date when the project is re-baselined this summer. Coupled with recent increases in the estimated operating costs of the facility, the committee matched the Obama Administration’s $388.8 million request for ongoing construction of the facility in the FY 2013 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, but is holding back money for early startup work until the facility’s price tag is better defined. That means that panel is moving to cut $27.2 million for expanding Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Advanced Recovery and Integration Extraction System to provide more plutonium feedstock for the facility, as well as $50 million that would’ve been used to alter the MOX facility for feedstock production. An additional $47.2 million for early startup activities was also cut, while $28.4 million was cut from the facility’s operating expenses account.

Elsewhere in the bill, the panel added $45.1 million to the Administration’s $174.9 million request for work on the W76 life extension program, while it boosted funding for the National Ignition Facility to help make up for increased overhead rates charged to the project. The Global Threat Reduction Initiative also received a $16.7 million boost to help the NNSA meet the President’s four-year goal to secure vulnerable nuclear materials around the world, while the committee rescinded $65 million in prior-year balances for the deferred Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility, distributing it to accelerate work on safety improvements to Los Alamos’ Plutonium Facility ($30 million) and begin cleaning out the Plutonium Facility’s vault ($35 million).

When it comes to the DOE cleanup program, appropriators have chosen not to back the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget requests for cleanup work at the Savannah River Site, Hanford and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The bill would provide approximately $1.149 billion for Savannah River, a cut of approximately $33 million from DOE’s request. The bulk of the proposed cut, approximately $20 million, would come from funds sought for liquid waste cleanup activities, while approximately $12 million would come from other Savannah River cleanup funds. At Los Alamos, the bill would provide approximately $215 million, down from the $235 million DOE had requested. House appropriators have chosen not to support DOE’s request for Los Alamos, in part, because of concerns over a lack of information on soil and groundwater cleanup, WC Monitor has learned. At Hanford, the bill would provide approximately $953 million for work overseen by the Richland Operations Office, a cut of $10 million from DOE’s request, and approximately $465 million for tank farm activities, down $17 million from the request. House appropriators have chosen to support, though, DOE’s FY 2013 request of approximately $690 million for the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant.

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