The sitting leaders of the Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee plan to remain in place when the next Congress convenes in January.
Staffers for both subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) this week confirmed their bosses’ intentions for the 116th Congress.
Alexander has held the post since 2015, taking over from Feinstein after Democrats lost their Senate majority in the 2014 midterm elections. Both longtime lawmakers are also among the senior senators on the full Appropriations Committee.
A Feinstein staffer said he was not sure when the upper chamber’s Appropriations subcommittees will make their formal leadership announcements.
The energy and water subcommittee prepares the annual first draft of the Senate appropriations bill that covers the Department of Energy, its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, among other agencies. For the current fiscal 2019, the panel proposed $7.2 billion for DOE’s nuclear cleanup operations and just over $910 million for the NRC – spending amounts that survived congressional scrutiny and were signed into law in September.
The Senate Appropriations energy and water panel zeroed out the Trump administration’s request for nearly $170 million in fiscal 2019 at DOE and the NRC to revive licensing of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. The Senate had its way in negotiations on the matter with the House, which had proposed $270 million. This was the administration’s second foiled attempt to put money into the Yucca Mountain project after it was canceled nearly a decade ago by the Obama administration.
While the Energy Department, NNSA, and NRC already have full-year fiscal 2019 funding through Sept. 30, the Homeland Security Department and other federal agencies are living on a short-term spending bill that expires on Dec. 21.
There has been talk on Capitol Hill that the follow-on appropriations legislation will propose to carve out some money for Yucca Mountain, though the details remain fuzzy. The actual bill has not been made public. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened a partial government shutdown if the bill does not provide money for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
In the prior two Congresses, Alexander and Feinstein were among the co-sponsors of bills intended to break the long deadlock on permanent disposal of tens of thousands of tons of spent fuel now stranded on-site at U.S. nuclear power plants. Rather than promote Yucca Mountain, they called for consent-based siting for disposal and establishing an independent agency to manage the process. Neither bill passed Congress and there was no iteration in the 115th Congress that is just days away from ending. Alexander has publicly suggested the legislation could be revived, but his office this week did not respond to a query on the bill’s future.
Manchin to Become Top Democrat on Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Meanwhile, despite some pushback from members of his own party, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) will become the Democrats’ ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Manchin, a former West Virginia governor, has been a member of the committee since being elected to the Senate in 2010. He has served as a champion for his state’s coal industry, which has rankled some Democrats focused on climate change.
Manchin announced his new position in a Tuesday press release, saying the committee has a long history of bipartisanship. He was selected by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), according to the Huntington, W.Va., Herald-Dispatch newspaper.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the Democrats’ ranking member on Energy and Natural Resources since 2015, has signaled her interest in assuming the same spot on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. A vacancy was created there after Ranking Member Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) was defeated in his re-election bid in November.
While generally associated with promotion of the coal industry that has been crucial in his state, Manchin is not seen to oppose nuclear power or cleanup, a source said recently. This past September Manchin was one of nine senators to sponsor the Nuclear Energy Leadership Act, a measure designed to encourage development of advanced nuclear reactors.
Overall, the November midterm election left Republicans with a slightly larger Senate majority than they previously enjoyed. Republicans will hold 53 of the 100 seats in January, a net gain of two from the current breakdown.
One of the committee’s duties is to vet presidential nominees to top Energy Department posts – most recently advancing the nomination of Rita Baranwal as assistant energy secretary for nuclear energy. Baranwal, currently director of DOE’s Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear program, has not yet received a floor vote on the Senate. If that does not happen before the 115th Congress wraps up, the nomination will either be held over or returned to the White House.
The Energy and Natural Resources Committee also oversees policy concerning nuclear waste and DOE national laboratories, often calling in federal agency officials to grill them about budget and program decisions.
“I congratulate Sen. Manchin on his new role as ranking member,” Senate Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said in a Wednesday press release. “I’m excited to work with him in his new capacity as we continue our committee’s tradition of advancing good, timely, bipartisan legislation for our nation.
