Department of Energy nuclear budgets will stay at fiscal 2017 levels through Dec. 22, under a short-term continuing resolution Congress approved on Thursday.
President Donald Trump was expected to sign the stopgap budget bill after deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor. Without the new spending bill, federal funding would run out after midnight Friday and the government would shut down.
Under the new continuing resolution, the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will go two more weeks without the roughly $1-billion raise the administration sought — and which Congress appears ready to grant — for the current budget year that began Oct. 1. The administration requested about $14 billion for NNSA in 2018. The DOE subagency manages U.S. nuclear warhead and nonproliferation programs.
The Department of Energy, like the rest of the federal government, has been held at 2017 spending levels since September, when Congress signed a continuing resolution after failing to produce a permanent federal budget bill for fiscal 2018. The ultra-short stopgap approved Thursday extends the sunset date of the old continuing resolution.
