The Trump administration is proposing a modest increase in funding from current levels for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to leaked data that appears to outline its spending plan for the next budget year.
The regulator would receive just over $939.1 million for salaries and expenses in fiscal 2018, which begins Oct. 1. That would be up from $905 million provided in the fiscal 2017 omnibus budget approved earlier this month.
In a separate line item, the NRC Inspector General’s Office would be funded at $12.9 million, rising slightly from the current $12.1 million.
The Washington, D.C., think tank Third Way on Thursday posted the spreadsheet for what appears to be the White House’s proposed federal discretionary budget.
An NRC spokesman on Friday said the agency had not seen the spreadsheet and so could not address the budget numbers. The regulator cannot discuss the matter until the White House issues its formal congressional budget justification, which is expected Tuesday, NRC spokesman David McIntyre said by email.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission funds 90 percent of its annual operations through fees from licensees and license applicants. The spreadsheet does not provide specific figures for how much the agency expects to receive in fee-based funding (which first passes through the U.S. Treasury) or in direct congressional appropriations in the upcoming fiscal year. There was also no breakdown for how funds would be distributed among the NRC’s various missions, including oversight of nuclear decommissioning and low-level waste.
In the “skinny budget” issued in March, the White House said it would request $120 million to advance efforts for consolidated interim storage of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power reactors and to restart the suspended licensing process for the nuclear waste geological repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. It is not yet clear how much of that money might be applied to the NRC, which would rule on the license.
Congress will ultimately set budget levels for the NRC. While lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have objected to the administration’s proposals in other areas, the largely steady funding stream for the NRC seems unlikely to provoke much opposition.
The regulator’s current budget is $65 million lower than its request for the year, though it carried over $23 million in unspent funds from the previous budget and was expected to use “rebaselining” to save money via operations that could be suspended or conducted with fewer resources without a loss of efficiency.
