A three-bill minibus appropriations bill that includes funds for Energy and Water development, including $25.4 billion to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), entered debate Wednesday on the House floor.
The bill was released by top appropriators in the Senate and House Monday on both sides of the aisle. Congress has until Jan. 30 to either get all twelve spending plans passed or pass another stopgap spending bill, lest the government shut down again due to a lapse in funding.
“This package rejects President Trump’s push to let our competitors do laps around us by slashing federal funding for scientific research by upwards of 50% and killing thousands of good jobs in the process,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking member of both the Senate Appropriations committee and Energy and Water subcommittee, said in a statement Monday. “Importantly, passing these bills will help ensure that Congress, not President Trump and Russ Vought, decides how taxpayer dollars are spent—by once again providing hundreds of detailed spending directives and reasserting congressional control over these incredibly important spending decisions.”
Murray added, “It is so important we pass full-year funding bills again and refuse to cede power to this administration, and I hope that Republicans will work with us to do that as we pass the remainder of our funding bills.”
According to the minibus package, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office would receive in excess of $8.5 billion, counting all three major tranches of its funding.
Defense Environmental Cleanup, which accounts for the bulk of funds for the DOE Office of Environmental Management, would receive nearly $7.4 billion. Non-defense Environmental Cleanup would receive $322 million. The document says $865 million will be deposited into the DOE’s Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund.
The bill would also again fund the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) at $42 million.
While a topline is not listed for the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous agency in charge of maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, $25.4 billion is the sum of the funds that would go to weapons activities, naval reactors, defense nuclear nonproliferation and federal salaries. That is $200 million above the White House’s request.
The bill would provide $20.4 billion for weapons activities, which would include $186 million for the nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile and $1.13 billion for the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility. That number is $400 million above the White House’s budget.
For defense nuclear nonproliferation, the bill would provide $2.4 billion, or $115 million over President Donald Trump’s budget. This has been a controversial figure in the House in particular, with some Democrats saying the House’s subcommittee number of less than $2 billion was too low.
Naval reactors, which includes Columbia-class reactor systems development, would receive $2.13 billion, around $200 million less than the White House requested. Finally, federal salaries and expenses for NNSA would receive $525 million to remain available until Sept. 30, 2027.
“With passage of these three measures, we will have full-year funding in place for many of our most crucial programs,” House appropriations committee chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in Tuesday’s House rules committee hearing on the bill. He added that with the bill, the “Army Corps of Engineers will continue its important work of water development and flood control, as will the Department of Energy’s critical programs, including maintenance of our nuclear weapons stockpile.”
“I could go on and on, but I think the Committee sees the point: this three-bill package provides funding for countless critical programs that assist Americans every single day of the year,” Cole continued.