The close brush with a federal government shutdown did spark the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management Friday to call off a meeting of nuclear cleanup advisory chairs previously scheduled to start this Wednesday in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
The Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board Chairs meeting previously scheduled for this week was postponed last Friday due to a potential lapse in appropriations that would have prevented travel to the event, an agency representative said in a Monday email reply to Exchange Monitor.
The meeting that was scheduled for the DoubleTree Hotel in Oak Ridge could be rescheduled for the spring although no date is set, the DOE representative said.
In a rare weekend session, the House and Senate voted Saturday to approve a stopgap funding measure to keep the federal government open through Nov. 17, major media reported. The 88-to-nine vote in the Senate came only three hours before the end of fiscal 2023. The continuing budget resolution passed the House of Representatives 335-91, and President Joe Biden signed the measure into law.
