Kenneth Fletcher
NS&D Monitor
2/14/2014
While Congress approved a reprogramming request to move $59.2 million to construction activities at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility late last year, those funds have yet to reach the project, NS&D Monitor has learned. The National Nuclear Security Administration originally submitted the reprogramming request to Congress in early August in order to avoid losses to the workforce, but it took several months to clear the four Congressional panels that approve such requests. Since then, the MOX project has lost about 800 workers through a combination of layoffs resulting from lower spending levels and worker attrition due, in part, to uncertainty regarding the project’s future. The NNSA did not respond to request for comment this week on the status of the reprogrammed funds.
While the Obama Administration last year cut funding for MOX and said it was assessing alternatives for its surplus plutonium disposition mission, it has said that the reprogrammed funds would be necessary whether or not the MOX project moves ahead. “This reprogramming does not presuppose the results of the Administration’s options analysis. The reprogrammed $59.2 million would not be expended until FY 2014 but its reallocation is necessary to avoid layoff notices so as to maintain key nuclear expertise that will be needed whether the MOX project continues or enters a lengthy and complex shut-down process,” states the Aug. 5 reprogramming request.
Decision on Pu Disposition ‘Coming Fairly Soon’
Currently, the MOX plant, under construction at the Savannah River Site, is part of plans to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium under an agreement signed with Russia by converting it into fuel for nuclear reactors. The Administration has not yet announced the results of its alternatives assessment launched last summer for disposition of the plutonium, led by DOE Senior Advisor John MacWilliams. This week, acting NNSA Administrator Bruce Held said that a decision would come soon. “John MacWilliams is working on that. That will be coming, I think we’ll be getting some clarity on that fairly soon, which option, and at least the path on making a decision. That will be coming fairly soon,” Held said at the Sixth Annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit.
The Obama Administration’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget request called for $320 million for construction of the project, compared to $388.8 million in the FY 2013 request. But the project received an increase in the FY’14 omnibus spending bill enacted last month—$343.5 million construction funding, a $23.5 million increase from the Administration’s request. The NNSA said in August that it submitted the reprogramming request due to impacts of sequestration and the Continuing Resolution funding much of FY’13.
