The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of a must-pass defense policy bill would again authorize more than $7 billion for the Department of Energy to carry out Defense Environmental Cleanup at nuclear weapons complex sites.
Language in the nearly 1,200-page bill would also allow the secretary of energy to accelerate cleanup at nuclear facilities if the secretary finds that this would “accelerate the recapitalization, modernization, or replacement of National Nuclear Security Administration facilities supporting the nuclear weapons stockpile.”
Authorization bills set policy and spending limits for separate appropriations bills.
Overall, the Senate Armed Services’ National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal 2025 would authorize $7.03 billion of Defense Environmental Cleanup spending for the 12-month period starting Oct. 1. That’s slightly below the $7.06 billion requested by the administration of President Joe Biden (D).
Defense Environmental Cleanup accounts for the bulk of Environmental Management’s $8 billion-plus budget for nuclear remediation at 15 Cold War and Manhattan Project sites.
The Armed Services Committees’ bill text, and an accompanying report, was released Monday evening by Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Ranking Member Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.).
At the Hanford Site in Washington state, the committee’s NDAA bill would seek to trim the 12-month commissioning outlay for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant to $450 million, rather than the $466 million sought by DOE. The Office of River Protection line item would slip slightly below $2 billion as a result.
DOE plans to start turning some of the less-radioactive liquid waste at Hanford into a glass form at the Bechtel-built plant starting some time in 2025.
Elsewhere in the bill report, lawmakers ask the Government Accountability Office to brief defense committees in Congress by March 1, 2025 on the Office of Environmental Management’s progress in the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project, located in southeastern Utah.
DOE expects the Moab uranium mill tailings pile will be relocated from near the Colorado River by 2027, according to the NDAA report. The tailings are being moved to an engineered disposal cell about 30 miles away. DOE expects the entire project could be done by about 2030.
