Remediation of the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina would be funded at about $1.5 billion for fiscal 2021 under legislation passed out of the House Appropriations Committee on a 30-21 vote Monday.
That amount would be about $83 million more than the $1.46 billion enacted by Congress for fiscal 2020, which ends Sept. 30. It would also be $6.6 million more than the amount proposed in February by the Donald Trump administration as part of the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) spending plan.
The House committee’s plan adds $65 million for operation the Salt Waste Processing Facility and also deletes $21 million in SWPF construction funding from fiscal 2020, given that the plant is effectively built and expected to come online soon.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico would receive $423 million under the energy and water appropriations bill, which is roughly $26 million more than the almost $397 million provided by Congress for this year and $40 million more than the $383 million White House request.
The report that accompanies the House bill calls on the Energy Department to coordinate with New Mexico to study traffic levels on roadways around WIPP, and brief the committee on the issue within 60 days of the bill’s passage on the findings. The briefing should detail DOE-related traffic in the area between 1992 and 2020 and how this compares to other major regional users of the same roads, such as the oil and gas industry.
The $7.5 billion nuclear cleanup budget endorsed by House appropriators Monday, within the $49.6 billion legislation, is equal to the EM budget for fiscal 2020 and must still be voted upon by the full House. The Senate Appropriations Committee has yet to issue its spending plan.
The House panel’s proposal is well above the $6.1 billion requested by the Trump administration for EM in fiscal 2021.
The bill also includes over $3 billion in “additional” infrastructure spending at the Office of Environmental Management, such as $230 million worth of new tank farm infrastructure at the Hanford Site in Washington state and $170 million for decommissioning excess facilities at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said last week members of his party were not consulted about the additional funding included throughout the energy and water package. He predicted the extra money will be deleted in the Senate.
