The House and Senate disagree about whether to fund construction of new tritium facilities at the Savannah River Site in fiscal 2019, according to their latest appropriations proposals.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, in a bill approved late last week, fully backed the Trump administration’s $27 million request for new tritium-related infrastructure at the South Carolina facility in 2019.
The House Appropriations Committee recommended only $2 million in a bill approved earlier this month. That is in contrast to their colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee, who in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act approved by the lower chamber earlier this month authorized the full $27 million for the planned Savannah River Site Tritium Production Capability.
House appropriators did not say why they would not meet the request for the new Tritium Production Capability, which would replace the Savannah River Site’s 1950s-vintage H Area Old Manufacturing Facility. In the facility, the NNSA performs final manufacturing touches on tritium reservoirs that are filled up elsewhere on the site, then inspects the reservoirs before preparing them for shipment off-site.
The Senate’s version of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act still has not been made public. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the bill last week.
The NNSA estimates the new Tritium Production Capability will cost about $500 million to build.
The full House is slated to vote in June on a package of appropriations bills that includes the Department of Energy’s budget bill for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The Senate’s energy and water appropriations package was not scheduled for floor debate at deadline Wednesday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said last week a vote could happen in June.
Tritium gas, obtained from uranium, increases the explosive yield of nuclear warheads and acts as a sort of fountain of youth for aging warheads. Warheads naturally lose some explosive power as their plutonium and uranium cores decay: something the NNSA can balance out by adding more tritium to the warhead.
