Brian Bradley
WC Monitor
10/9/2015
The Senate on Wednesday voted 70-27 to pass the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2016, following an Oct. 1 House vote of 270-156 to pass the bill. President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the bill because of language that pluses up his fiscal 2016 request for the Budget Control Act-exempted Overseas Contingency Operations account, an increase intended to circumvent BCA-induced budget austerity. The Senate vote constitutes a veto-proof majority, but the House vote does not.
Overall, the bill would authorize $5.1 billion for defense environmental cleanup, slightly less than the administration’s $5.2 billion request. The NDAA would boost authorized cleanup funds for the Hanford Site in Washington state to $915.8 million, $72 million above Obama’s request, according to the bill’s conference report. All of those increased funds will go toward “river corridor and other cleanup operations.” The bill also matched the White House’s requests of $1.4 billion to fund the Office of River Protection at Hanford and $690 million for the site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. It provides $1.2 billion for the Savannah River Site, which includes radioactive liquid tank waste and the Salt Waste Processing Facility.
Furthermore, the bill would authorize the Obama administration’s $357.8 million request for Idaho cleanup and waste disposition, its $243.3 million request for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico—which includes ongoing plant maintenance and construction—and its $177.4 million request for the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.
The bill also proposes zeroing out Obama’s request for a $471.8 million fiscal 2016 contribution to the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund.
