Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
2/6/2015
Budgetary pressure in GOP-controlled Congress could force tough decisions on President Obama’s $12.6 billion request for the National Nuclear Security Administration, including on funding for the Uranium Processing Facility, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee suggested this week. The Obama Administration requested $430 million for work on UPF as part of its Fiscal Year 2016 budget request, asking for $95 million more than it requested a year ago. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) told reporters Feb. 5 that despite “strong bipartisan support” for the project, the Administration may not get the full $430 million it requested. “The Administration has recommended more spending than Congress is likely to approve across the board,” Alexander said. “So the number may be less than that.”
The increased request for the project comes even as the NNSA has scaled back plans for the facility, moving away from the “big box” approach that forced cost estimates to balloon to more than $10 billion and toward a modular strategy utilizing several smaller buildings as well as existing infrastructure at the site. In budget documents released this week, the Administration said it planned to request $500 million for the project in FY 2017, $515 million in FY 2018 and $520 million in FY 2019.
‘We Want to Make Sure it’s Efficiently Spent’
Alexander said the subcommittee would have a hearing in March dealing with the Uranium Processing Facility to “try to assess how much can properly be spent in the next year.” He added: “The uranium facility is one of the largest federal construction projects in the United States, and I think, barring some sort of catastrophe, I would expect Congress to appropriate regularly several hundred million dollars a year, for the next seven to 10 years, I guess, until it’s completed. The exact number will depend upon the hearings, how much the managers say they can properly spend. And we want to make sure it’s efficiently spent.”
Alexander and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, have increased oversight on major NNSA construction projects in recent years, focusing in on UPF. “The money that we’re spending is the money of Tennessee taxpayers too, and Senator Feinstein and I have insisted that the uranium facility be 90 percent designed before we move ahead and that it be done on time and on budget,” he said. “So we’ll be holding hearings to make sure that it stays within the budget and that it’s built on time.”
