The House Armed Services Committee chairman’s mark of the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act keeps the door open for sustaining the Department of Energy’s Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina – assuming Congress provides any money for the project.
The 701-page document, released Monday by HASC Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), says the energy secretary “shall carry out construction and project support activities relating to the MOX facility using funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or otherwise made available for fiscal year 2018 for the National Nuclear Security Administration for the MOX facility for construction and project support activities.”
Corresponding language has appeared in recent years’ NDAAs, even as the Obama administration unsuccessfully sought to persuade Congress to zero out funding for the Savannah River Site facility that would convert 34 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium into commercial nuclear reactor fuel. While project backers hoped the Trump administration would see things differently, Energy Secretary Rick Perry told lawmakers last week that DOE continues to believe it has found a better alternative in the dilute and dispose method for the plutonium. President Donald Trump’s DOE budget would provide $270 million toward termination of the MOX facility and another $9 million to pursue the alternative.
The NDAA would also authorize a small additional boost in spending for DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration beyond what is has requested for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. The agency in total requested $13.9 million, but would be authorized for up to $14.2 million. The NNSA’s nuclear weapons activities would be authorized at up to $10.4 million, compared to the $10.2 million ask; defense nuclear nonproliferation would be authorized at $1.9 million, compared to the agency’s $1.8 million request.
The House Armed Services Committee is scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. Wednesday to mark up the NDAA.
