The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved legislation that would provide $7.45 billion in fiscal 2020 for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management.
The nuclear cleanup funding in the Senate energy and water appropriations bill outstrips the roughly $7.2 billion approved by the House of Representatives in a “minibus” spending package in June, along with the $6.5 billion proposed by the Donald Trump administration.
The DOE office, which oversees remediation of 16 Cold War and Manhattan Project sites, is funded at about $7.2 billion for the current fiscal 2019, which ends Sept. 30.
The measure will now go before the full Republican-controlled Senate
The bulk of the Senate proposal for the Office of Environmental Management consists of more than $6.2 billion for defense environmental cleanup, compared to the $6 billion enacted level for fiscal 2019, the $6 billion in the House bill, and the $5.5 billion sought by the administration.
Under the Senate appropriations bill, the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund would receive $906 million, compared to $873 million passed by the House and the administration’s $715 million request. The Senate panel called for $318 million in non-defense environmental cleanup, up from about $308 million in the House version and the $248 million sought by the administration.
The Senate proposal would provide the Hanford Site in Washington, the Energy Department’s most contaminated Cold War cleanup site, with $2.5 billion spread across two agency offices. That would be $470 million more than the White House sought and roughly $50 million more than approved by the House.
The Senate appropriations proposal would provide $900 million for the Richland Operations Office at Hanford, more than the nearly $846 million sought by the House and far above the $629 million requested by the administration. The Richland Office oversees most remediation activities at Hanford, along with its infrastructure needs.
The Office of River Protection would get $1.6 billion, compared to $1.57 billion appropriated in 2019 and almost $1.56 billion passed by the House. The Senate panel’s ORP funding level would also far exceed the $1.39 billion sought by the White House. The office oversees management of 56 million gallons of chemical and radioactive waste stored in underground tanks, which is left over from decades of plutonium production at the 596-square-mile facility.
Elsewhere, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina would get about $1.47 billion for environmental spending in the Senate Appropriations Committee plan, up from the $1.43 billion approved by the House and roughly flat with the amount sought by the Energy Department. The DOE facility is funded at about $1.39 billion in fiscal 2019.
Idaho National Laboratory cleanup would be funded at $373 million, down from $433 million in fiscal 2019 and the $424 million in the House bill, but still above the $335 million White House request.
With time running down on the current fiscal year, the House of Representatives is expected to vote next week on a continuing resolution to keep the government open until Nov. 21, which should give lawmakers in the two chambers to hammer out a budget deal for fiscal 2020, The Hill newspaper reported Friday.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) told an Energy Department cleanup conference in Alexandria, Va., on Thursday that he expects the continuing resolution to pass. The House appropriator said while he dislikes continuing resolutions, he is even less fond of government shutdowns.
