MOVEMENT AT LAST ON EM REPOGRAMMING REQUEST

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management may soon be able to submit a long-planned reprogramming request to Congress after having this week resolved an issue concerning funds for cleanup activities at the Los Alamos National Laboratory with the White House Office of Management and Budget, WC Monitor has learned, though other issues still could emerge to further delay the request. DOE communicated the resolution of the Los Alamos funding issue to New Mexico officials earlier this week, but the reprogramming request has not yet been submitted. EM has been seeking additional funds for the cleanup work underway at Los Alamos because of a current funding shortfall caused by the Continuing Resolution funding most federal programs this fiscal year and sequestration. While the request is now likely to provide less funding for Los Alamos than originally planned, it should be sufficient to keep transuranic waste disposition efforts on track for the remainder of this fiscal year, according to officials familiar with the issue. Notably, Los Alamos National Laboratory did not issue the required WARN Act notices to employees involved in the cleanup work impacted by the funding issues yesterday—May 1 is the start of the 60-day notice period that would be required if layoffs would start on July 1, as would be the case if the reprogramming is not approved—suggesting that resolution of the issue is imminent. EM declined to comment on the issue yesterday.
 
EM’s reprogramming efforts are intended to help better position funding among a variety of cleanup projects, in large part due to the impacts of the CR that kept DOE’s cleanup funds largely at FY 2012 levels, which may not match up with current needs. Adding to EM’s current fiscal challenges is the need to respond to the impacts of sequestration, which for the remainder of this fiscal year resulted in a funding cut of hundreds of millions of dollars and led to thousands of workers at EM sites facing furloughs or layoffs. While EM has provided little information publicly on its reprogramming plans, DOE is also believed to be looking to shift funds at the Savannah River Site and at Hanford’s Office of River Protection and may be considering moving funding from the Portsmouth site to help address issues at Paducah.

Meanwhile, three members of South Carolina’s House delegation yesterday sent a letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget calling for “immediate action” on the reprogramming request. In the letter to OMB director Sylvia Burwell, Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC), Jeff Duncan (R-SC) and Tom Rice (R-SC) expressed concern for furloughed Savannah River Site employees. “We fully understand the reality of the budgetary restraints placed on accounts affected by sequestration. However, these funds, which have already been appropriated by Congress, have been held up at OMB for over a month and not allowed to come to the House and Senate for final approval,” the letter states. “Vital national security missions have been altered and over 2,500 committed employees have been adversely affected because of OMB’s delayed response.” Wilson plans to hold a town hall meeting in Aiken, South Carolina, on Friday to discuss impacts of sequestration on the Savannah River workforce.