The Energy Department and its Office of Environmental Management will remain open for business on Monday thanks to a continuing resolution (CR) passed by Congress late Thursday to keep the government running through Dec. 22.
The House of Representatives passed the stopgap spending plan 235-193 while the Senate passed it 81-14. The measure is largely a twin of the CR that was passed in late September to keep the lights on at the federal government through Dec. 8. This version essentially extends fiscal 2017 spending levels to Dec. 22, or until lawmakers pass a longer-term spending plan.
The government’s latest budget year, fiscal 2018, began on Oct. 1. “This legislation will prevent a government shutdown and preserve vital federal programs that Americans rely on,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R- N.J.) in a press release.
Office of Environmental Management cleanup of Cold War nuclear sites would be funded for two additional weeks at an annualized rate of $6.4 billion: not much less than the $6.5 billion the Donald Trump administration requested for fiscal 2018.
There is a provision for some leeway to prevent disruption at large-scale decontamination and decommissions projects. Specifically, DOE’s Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund can spend enough to “avoid disruption of continuing projects,” according to the language of the existing CR.
This could have implications for D&D at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio. Portsmouth was budgeted at $315.2 million for fiscal 2017 and had made a fiscal 2018 request for $351 million. Both the House and Senate have endorsed the $351 million.
The UED&D fund supports the cleanup of some of the nation’s most contaminated areas, including Portsmouth.
Generally speaking, there were no surprises in the CR, an industry source said early Friday.
The continuing resolution has been a source of much anticipation across the DOE weapons cleanup complex for both the government and federal contractors.
“Our most immediate challenge, the budget expires on Friday,” DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader said during a Wednesday night town hall meeting for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. “We should have funding after that. I fully expect that we will have another CR … that’s what NPR [National Public Radio] told me on the drive over here,” Shrader said.
Some contractors connected with big-ticket projects were a bit edgy about how much cash they might have to carry them through the next two weeks.
“If they do the dribs and drabs” it can complicate momentum for large projects, one industry source said this week.
A second source said this season is particularly hard on projects that feel they were clearly underfunded during the prior fiscal year, because now the low funding will constrain them even longer. “The losers are going to lose twice,” the source said. The situation is made more acute given that most contractors try and keep their spending at 5 percent less than the available money, the source said.
