A defense policy bill on the verge of passage would require the U.S. Energy Department to provide Congress with anticipated costs of complying with court-enforced consent decrees at nuclear cleanup sites.
The final version of the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed easily out of the House of Representatives Wednesday on a vote of 377-48. It is expected to win Senate approval next week, followed at some point by the signature of President Donald Trump.
The bill sets policies and spending limits on defense programs, including DOE’s nuclear weapons and environmental remediation programs.
Consent orders are judicial settlements in which the court retains an oversight role. Such agreements, often involving environmental cleanup timetables, are not uncommon in the weapons complex. For example, a federal consent order signed in 2010 and revised in 2016 governs cleanup of underground radioactive tank waste and other cleanup issues at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Also, a 1995 consent agreement required DOE to, among other things, remove 65,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste now stored at the Idaho National Laboratory.
For every installation with a consent decree, DOE should provide the cost for remediation in the current fiscal year, along with the next four budget years, according to the NDAA report language. This includes the cost of complying with milestones stipulated in the orders.
Reports from entities such as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) have faulted the agency for not fully briefing Congress on the full cost of anticipated remediation. The NDAA said Congress needs to receive more information on “unfunded priorities” at the Energy Department.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management will be authorized under the bill to spend more than $5.5 billion on defense environmental cleanup, which is its largest account, for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. That is roughly in line with the White House request, which is about 9% below the 2019 EM budget for defense environmental cleanup. Most nuclear cleanup projects are authorized at the requested level or more, with offsets paid for by less-than-requested funding limits to demolish excess facilities at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
The actual funding will come from separate appropriations legislation. Congress has yet to pass a full appropriation for 2020, instead relying on short-term continuing resolutions to keep the federal government open. The second and latest stopgap will keep the government funded at 2019 levels through Dec. 20.
Politico and other media reported Thursday that a deal has been reached “in principle” to keep government agencies operating through the rest of fiscal 2020.
During fiscal 2019, congressional appropriators provided $7.2 billion for remediation of the 16 properties overseen by the Office of Environmental Management, which included $6 billion for defense environmental cleanup. The House of Representatives would keep both the overall budget and the defense environmental line item roughly flat with 2019, while a bill out of the Senate Appropriations Committee would increase the spending to almost $7.5 billion and $6.2 billion, respectively.
The Senate Appropriations Committee called for $318 million in non-defense environmental remediation spending at DOE, up from about $308 million in the House version and the $248 million in the administration request.
The third tranche of Office of Environmental Management funding is the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund. Senate Appropriations would prove $906 million for UED&D, more than the $873 million approved by the House and the $715 million sought by the administration.
The UED&D fund and the non-defense funding are not covered by the NDAA.
ExchangeMonitor Reporter Dan Leone contributed to this article.
