The largest nuclear cleanup sites run by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management would meet or beat fiscal 2023 funding levels, under the compromise 2024 appropriations bill released over the weekend.
The Office of Environmental Management would get about $8.5 billion for fiscal 2024, roughly what Senate appropriators recommended. The final bill would give the office, responsible for cleanup of shuttered nuclear weapon production sites, about $200 more than what the House had proposed. Environmental Management had been funded at about $8 billion in 2023.
The House approved the bill on Wednesday by a vote of 339 to 85, the Senate was still debating the measure at deadline Friday for Weapons Complex Monitor, with vote scheduled for later in the day. Federal funding for DOE and other agencies covered by the appropriations package was set to run out after midnight.
At the Hanford Site in Washington state, the former plutonium-making complex that is now DOE’s most expensive cleanup project, the two operational offices would together receive more than $2.93 billion, according to the House-Senate Conference Committee’s bill report.
That would be more than the $2.7-billion-plus enacted by Congress for 2023 and a little above the $2.9 billion President Joe Biden (D) requested for 2024.
Nickolas Bumpaous, the business manager for United Association of Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 598, issued a statement Wednesday praising Washington’s congressional delegation and especially Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.). The funding also reflects “her unwavering support for the health and safety of every worker involved in this mission,” Bumpaous said.
The Richland Operations Office would receive more than $1 billion, about $35 million over the fiscal 2023 appropriation level and $121 million more than the White House request.
The Office of River Protection would get $1.89 billion, $85 million less than what DOE sought but still $160 million more than the fiscal 2023 level enacted by congress, according to the bill report.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management budget for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina would be just shy of $1.65 billion in 2024, under the compromise bill. That would be $1 million above the fiscal 2023 enacted level and $73 million less than the administration’s request.
In fiscal 2025, which starts Oct. 1, the National Nuclear Security Administration will become landlord at Savannah River, taking over from Environmental Management, which will continue cleanup there. The existing contractors will remain unchanged.
The Environmental Management appropriation for the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee would be about $565 million, up roughly $60 million from the requested and enacted levels in fiscal 2023.
Idaho National Laboratory fiscal 2024 appropriation would be $478 million, $20 million more than fiscal 2023 and $31 million more than DOE requested.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico would receive $464 million, equal to what the administration sought and $6 million more than its enacted fiscal 2023 appropriation.
As has become increasingly common over the years, the government has stayed open since Sept. 30, 2023 thanks to a series of continuing resolutions that kept federal spending close to fiscal 2023 levels.
