A backup defense authorization bill unveiled this week by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) would authorize 2020 Department of Energy defense-nuclear spending and explicitly authorize starts for several new programs.
Inhofe lifted the lid on the so-called “skinny” fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) late Tuesday. The measure drops many of the specific policy prescriptions of the larger NDAA in an effort to avoid partisan disagreements that could derail the bill, Inhofe said. To that end, the legislation would extend key military spending authorities — payments for military personnel and funds for overseas war operations — beyond their current sunset date of Dec. 31.
It would also authorize Energy Department appropriations made available under either a permanent 2020 budget, or a continuing resolution enacted to keep funds flowing at 2019 levels after the current stopgap budget expires on Nov. 21.
With Senate Democrats indicating this week that they would block a full-year spending bill containing money for DOE and the Pentagon — because it would also fund President Donald Trump’s proposed southern border wall — prospects rose for the second short-term budget of the still-young fiscal year.
Aside from authorizing spending on defense nuclear programs generally, the skinny NDAA would:
- Authorize DOE’s Office of Environmental Management to start work on new advanced manufacturing and salt-waste disposal projects at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., plus authorize work on parts of an on-site waste disposal facility at the Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio, a former uranium enrichment complex.
- Authorize the agency’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to expand a facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in preparation to begin producing war-usable fissile nuclear-weapon cores, or pits, and to expand part of the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in New York state to continue researching nuclear fuel improvements for the Navy.
Democratic lawmakers who lead the House, including Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.), still say they would prefer to pass a full NDAA. Bicameral conference negotiations over that bill have stalled as Democrats resist Republican efforts to use the Pentagon’s budget to fund construction of the wall.
The Senate Armed Services Committee had not scheduled a vote on the skinny bill at deadline Thursday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.
Even if the bill, or the larger NDAA, passes, DOE defense nuclear programs could still struggle to hit their 2020 targets if they are again stuck with a continuing resolution that extends 2019 budget further into the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
At 2019 levels, the Office of Environmental Management would get $7 billion: more than the $6.5 billion the Energy Department requested for 2020, less than the nearly $7.5 billion the Senate proposed in its permanent 2020 appropriations bill, and about equal to the House’s 2020 recommended appropriation.
The NNSA would get about $15.2 billion at an annualized rate in another bridge budget: much lower than either the $16.5 billion requested for 2020, the House’s proposed $16 billion, or the Senate’s recommended $17 billion.
Authorization bills set policy and spending limits for appropriations bills, which are written by separate committees.
