President Joe Biden requested $47.2 million for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board for the 2025 fiscal year starting Oct, 1, or $5.2 million than the $42 million recently appropriated by congress for the small watchdog agency in fiscal 2024.
The White House requested the $47.2 million and the equivalent of 128 full-time staff positions, about equal to current staffing, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) combined 2025 budget justification and 2023 performance report. The DNFSB document was published earlier this month.
Before the compromise 2024 spending package passed earlier in March, DNFSB like the rest of the government, was operating under a continuing resolution. That resolution kept DNFSB at the fiscal 2023 level of $41 million, according to the DNFSB annual report.
There would be a civilian pay increase of 2% in January 2025, according to the DNFSB document. The board requests $1.1 million to support the official travel of board members and staff.
Congress established DNFSB in 1988 as an independent executive branch agency charged with providing outside analysis and safety recommendations to the secretary of energy for nuclear defense sites.
The board is set up as a five-member panel, although it currently has only two: Chair Joyce Connery, whose term ends Oct. 18, and vice chair Thomas Summers, whose term ends in October 2025. A potential third member, Patricia Lee, has won the endorsement of the Senate Armed Services Committee but has yet to receive a vote in the full Senate.
