The Obama Administration continued to try to distance itself from the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, objecting to language in the House version of the Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations Act that would keep construction on the controversial facility going in FY 2016. Calling the language “unnecessarily restrictive,” the Administration said in a Statement of Administration Policy that the bill would “preclude alternative, and potentially more cost-effective, approaches to implementing U.S. commitments in the 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement and its 2010 annex to dispose of excess weapons plutonium.”
The House version of the bill fully funds the MOX project at $345 million in FY 2016 and contains a provision prohibiting the Administration from using that money to put the project into cold standby. With construction and lifecycle costs rising, the Administration tried to put the project in cold standby last year, but Congress blocked the move, requiring construction to continue. Two additional studies of MOX alternatives were performed, including a study released last week by The Aerospace Corporation that suggested the lifecycle cost of the project would be $52 billion if funding was steady at $500 million a year. The study also said that downblending and disposing of the 34 metric tons of plutonium would cost approximately $17.2 billion. “DOE contracted for an independent validation of costs for plutonium disposition alternatives in accordance with congressional mandates. The results of that analysis will inform the Administration’s approach to plutonium disposition,” the Administration said.