The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday planned to vote on its version of the Department of Energy’s fiscal year 2025 appropriations bill, the committee announced.
The bill, which funds other agencies, is one of five pieces of legislation scheduled for debate and a vote in a marathon session that was to begin at 9:30 a.m. Among the other bills on the committee’s slate is the defense appropriations bill, which funds Pentagon programs including the nuclear forces of U.S. Strategic Command.
The committee had not published its DOE budget bill as of Sunday. The panel has marked up multi-bill packages each Thursday for the past two weeks and has typically shared bill and report language online the same day the bills pass.
If Thursday’s committee meeting happens as planned, all 12 annual appropriations bills will be ready for the Senate floor once the upper chamber returns from its annual August recess.
The House left town for recess last week without approving its own version of the energy and water bill, which made it all the way to the floor before a few Republicans mutinied and opposed the measure, effectively sinking its chances for passage in the lower chamber, where substantially all Democrats said they would vote against it.
Rep. Charles Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), the chair of the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee, shared news of the bill’s apparent death on the floor Tuesday during an after-hours meeting of the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus on Capitol Hill.
For the National Nuclear Security Administration and its active nuclear-weapons programs, the White House requested about $25 billion for 2025, a $1-billion boost compared with the 2024 appropriation. The House Appropriations Committee provided more than the request.
For the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, the White House requested about $8.2 billion, or roughly $253 million fewer than the 2024 budget. House appropriators were willing to provide a little more than the request for cleanup.
For DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, the White House sought $1.7 billion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, down about $94 million compared with the 2024 appropriation. The House Appropriations Committee provided more than that for 2025, mostly in the form of unrequested extra funding for advanced reactor development.