SENATE E&W MATCHES REQUEST FOR NNSA WEAPONS PROGRAM, CUTS CLEANUP

In clearing its version of the Fiscal Year 2014 Energy and Water Appropriations Act yesterday, the Senate Energy and Water Development Subcommittee only released top line numbers for the NNSA and other Department of Energy programs. Overall, the subcommittee matched the Administration’s $7.868 billion request for the NNSA’s weapons program and boosted funding for the NNSA’s nonproliferation account by $40 million, from $2.140 billion to $2.180 billion. The panel also provided approximately $5.4 billion for the Department of Energy’s cleanup program, a cut of about $700 million from DOE’s FY 2014 request. The amount released by the Senate panel yesterday, though, only includes defense and non-defense environmental cleanup funding, and does not take into account money to be spent next year from the uranium enrichment D&D fund. It also is unclear whether the proposed cut in funding includes a rejection of DOE’s proposal to reauthorize both federal and utility payments into the D&D fund, for which the Department sought $463 million. Lawmakers have again and again rejected this proposal in recent years. For defense environmental cleanup funding, which covers most major DOE cleanup sites, the Senate bill would provide $5.147 billion, a cut of $169 million from the Department’s request. Site-by-site funding levels were not available yesterday, but Senate appropriators are believed to have provided additional funding above DOE’s requests for Hanford, Idaho and Los Alamos.

• An additional $73 million for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative and a $50 million boost for the Second Line of Defense program;
• Language creating a nine-member independent commission to examine how DOE’s 17 national laboratories can meet new energy and national security challenges; and
• A provision requiring NNSA to report to Congress every six months on projects exceeding $750 million.