President Donald Trump is expected today to sign into law an omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal 2017 that largely maintains funding for construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina while leaving room to study former President Barack Obama’s proposed alternative method of plutonium disposition.
This means questions about the future of the MOX project will persist at least until the administration releases its next budget plan, expected before the end of May.
After surviving on a series of short-term spending resolutions through much of the budget year that began on Oct. 1, the federal government is finally funded for the entirety of fiscal 2017. Both houses of Congress approved the $1 trillion omnibus this week.
The bill provides $12.9 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration, an increase of $142 million from the fiscal 2016 level and $63 million more than former President Barack Obama’s request for the current budget year. The NS&D budget tracker offers a breakdown of each spending item.
Of this, $1.9 billion would go toward the defense nuclear nonproliferation account, a $38 million decrease from fiscal 2016. This account includes $335 million for construction and project support for the embattled MOX plant at the Savannah River Site – $5 million less than the House and Senate’s requested authorization.
Meanwhile, the bill grants the NNSA up to $15 million to plan and carry out conceptual design activities for the proposed alternative to MOX: plutonium dilution and disposal in an underground repository.
While the Trump administration’s approach to MOX is not yet clear, Congress’ approval of funding for the alternative approach indicates the struggle over the future of the project will continue.
An industry source said this week that the omnibus is “very much a status quo budget.” This also pertains to MOX; the bill gives it close to the same amount as it received last year, specifically to continue construction. Meanwhile, the individual added, there is huge concern over the upcoming fiscal 2018 budget “because nobody knows what the Trump administration will do – they’re in a budget-cutting mood, and they have to meet their targets.”
Another industry source confirmed that the funding levels in the omnibus were not surprising: “It was just a matter of whether they could actually pass a bill.”
The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility is being built to meet the U.S. obligation under a deal with Russia in which each nation must eliminate 34 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium. The government has spent $5 billion on the facility; DOE has estimated the life-cycle cost to be roughly $50 billion, while project contractor CB&I AREVA MOX Services puts its estimate at $19 billion.
The Obama administration tried to terminate the project, proposing a new dilute and dispose method it said would be far cheaper and faster. Specifically, it said it could save tens of billions of dollars by diluting the plutonium at existing Savannah River Site facilities and storing the processed material at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
Congress, however, resisted the former administration’s efforts to defund MOX construction, leading the project’s advocates to hope that the new Trump administration would see the project through.
Further complicating the matter, Russian President Vladimir Putin withdrew from the bilateral deal last October, highlighting the U.S. proposal to change its disposition approach as one of the causes. The Russian Foreign Ministry wrote in a commentary over the weekend that the nation would consider returning to the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement if the U.S. side were to adhere to the agreed-upon MOX method for eliminating its stocks.
Some observers say that sticking to the MOX approach may be the easiest way to begin a thaw in an otherwise icy U.S. relationship with Russia.
The White House is expected to release its full fiscal 2018 budget request on May 22, which could make clear the administration’s intention on the future of MOX. The administration’s broad budget overview, issued in March, proposes nearly $14 billion in total for the NNSA.
Congress will then have until Sept. 30 to pass the next budget.
