President Joe Biden’s (D) administration announced Thursday it wants $8.3 billion for cleanup of Cold War and Manhattan Project nuclear properties for fiscal 2024, which would be flat with the final Congressional appropriation for the current spending year ending Sept. 30.
A 182-page overview of the fiscal 2024 budget recommendation was released at mid-day by the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The White House spending recommendation also calls for $23.8 billion for DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to continue modernization of the nuclear weapons stockpile. The recommended spending would amount to about 6% more than NNSA’s 2023 appropriation of $22.2 billion.
The top-line plan also proposed $196 million for DOE’s Office of Legacy Management, which oversees and monitors nuclear sites that have already been remediated. The proposal would be up from $190 million in the current year.
The spending proposal also calls for $70 million for “Community Capacity Building initiatives” in the Office of Environmental Management and NNSA for “areas of persistent poverty” around DOE sites.
“The administration would ensure investments for the cleanup of legacy pollution and long-term stewardship support the Justice40 Initiative to benefit disadvantaged communities,” according to the early document.
The Biden plan for DOE overall requests $52 billion in discretionary budget authority for 2024, a $6.2 billion or a 13.6% increase from the 2023 enacted level, according to the document.
While the president can make a recommendation, the ultimate authority rests with Congress, starting with the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee. To date, the GOP leadership in the house has refused to increase the federal government’s debt ceiling unless the White House agrees to deep federal spending cuts.
House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger (R-Texas) issued a release calling the overall fiscal 2024 proposal from the White House too expensive. “America simply cannot afford this misguided plan,” she said.
“The Senate Appropriations Committee will be busy and moving full steam ahead with subcommittee hearings on the President’s budget—providing an important opportunity to assess our country’s needs for the coming year and for every appropriator to weigh in on the President’s budget,” Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair and vice chair of the panel, said in a joint statement.
Last year the Biden administration initially proposed $7.6 million for the DOE Office of Environmental Management, down from the prior year appropriation of $7.9 million. But after facing blowback for delaying some work at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the White House took the unusual step of amending its budget request in June to provide extra funds.
