The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to close debate on its version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2019, setting up a floor vote Monday on the measure that sets spending caps on defense environmental cleanup at the Department of Energy.
Senators voted 81-15 in favor of cloture.
The defense policy bill, passed May 24 by the Senate Armed Services Committee, would allow DOE to spend $5.63 billion on defense environmental cleanup work during the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. That equals the Energy Department’s request but is $50 million less than authorized in the House NDAA.
The Senate NDAA would authorize $1.4 billion in defense environmental cleanup funds for the Office of River Protection, which oversees management of radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Senate version would allow $658.2 million for the Richland Operations Office, which is charged with remaining cleanup operations at Hanford. The House NDAA authorizes $708 million in spending on the Richland Operations Office while meeting DOE’s $1.4 billion request for the Office of River Protection.
The Senate and House versions of the legislation would authorize $226.2 million of defense environmental spending at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee; $1.5 billion for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; and $397 million for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
WIPP would be funded at the same $397 million mark by the House and Senate Appropriations plans. The Savannah River Site would get $1.4 billion in the Senate Appropriations bill, slightly above the $1.38 billion included in the House package.
The NDAA does not set budgets, but it does set limits on upcoming appropriations. It also does not cover two other tranches of funding for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management: nondefense environmental cleanup funding and the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund
The Environmental Management (EM) office would get $7.2 billion in total 2019 funding under the energy and water bill passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 24. The legislation awaits a floor vote, which could occur next week. The current fiscal 2018 budget includes $7 billion for EM.
On June 8, the House of Representatives approved a “minibus” spending package that includes its fiscal 2019 energy and water appropriations bill. The measure, which would provide $6.9 billion for EM, now goes to the Senate.
Among other things, the Senate NDAA calls for Energy Secretary Rick Perry to direct the National Academy of Sciences to study remediation efforts within the Office of Environmental Management. The document also calls for the Government Accountability Office to study transuranic waste repackaging at the Idaho National Laboratory. Four drums of repackaged waste got too hot and ruptured during an April 11 incident. The NDAA wants the GAO to study what happened and see what lessons can be learned.
