The Department of Energy and other federal agencies will operate under their 2021 budgets for at least another week beyond Friday , if a short-term continuing resolution slated for a House vote on Wednesday becomes law.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) announced the impending vote on Twitter Monday afternoon. The current stopgap bill, passed ahead of the end of the 2020 fiscal year on Sept. 30, stretched 2020 budgets through this week.
I am disappointed that we have not yet reached agreement on government funding. The House will vote on Wednesday on a one-week CR to keep government open while negotiations continue.
— Steny (Wear a Mask) Hoyer (@LeaderHoyer) December 7, 2020
That still leaves room for the lameduck government to reach an agreement on federal funding before the 116th Congress ends Jan. 3, but in the meantime, it would keep nuclear-weapons cleanup managed by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) about flat compared with 2020 and hold the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) civilian nuclear-weapons programs well below the White House’s request for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
Under the continuing resolution, EM would get the annualized equivalent of $7.45 billion, which is $1.3 billion more than requested for 2021, but a little less than either the $7.46 billion the House proposed as part of a multi-bill appropriations package over the summer, or the $7.47 billion the Senate Appropriations Committee proposed Nov. 10.
The NNSA would get the equivalent of $16.7 billion, which is some $3 billion less than the roughly $20 billion requested and $1.3 billion less than what the Democrat-controlled House approved for 2021. The Senate Appropriations Committee proposed giving the NNSA a little more than what it requested for fiscal 2021.
In addition, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the independent health-and-safety watchdog for active and shuttered DOE nuclear-weapon sites, would stay at $31 million under the continuing resolution: a little higher than the $29 million the administration requested.
Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would get about $10 million less than the $850 million the White House requested, under the stopgap extension. Both chambers of Congress this year essentially proposed to grant the White House’s budget request for the civilian nuclear power-plant regulator. There was no money for Yucca Mountain in either the White House’s 2021 request or the appropriations bills Congress produced this year.
