Budget & Policy

The House Appropriations Committee’s energy and water development spending plan for fiscal 2021 sustains the prohibition on Energy Department sales or barter of government-controlled uranium to help pay for remediation at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. “The Committee continues to reject any attempt to barter, transfer, or sell uranium to pay for Portsmouth cleanup costs,” […]

Legislation advanced out of the House Appropriations Committee on Monday sets the stage for the Department of Energy to proceed with its plan for long-term storage of elemental mercury at a privately owned facility in Texas. The 2021 energy and water appropriations bill includes language saying DOE can start accepting fees from businesses, such as […]

The secretary of energy should get more control over the agency’s nuclear weapons programs, not less, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said Tuesday. “[W]e should be strengthening the secretary of energy’s role in managing the nuclear security mission, because [the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)] seems to be going from quasi-independent […]

With COVID-19 cases on the rise nationwide and Washington, D.C.-area school systems wondering whether they’ll reopen for in-person classes in the fall, the Department of Energy will no longer require most employees to return to their offices in the next phase of the agency’s reopening plan. Most of DOE’s 7,000 federal employees in the region, […]

It is ultimately up to Congress to decide whether it wants the federal government to move ahead with establishing a repository for nuclear waste under Yucca Mountain in Nevada, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said Tuesday. During an oversight hearing before the House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee, Brouillette said the Trump administration is focused […]

The Department of Defense would get close to its requested funding for most strategic nuclear weapons programs in fiscal 2021, under a spending bill approved on a party-line vote Tuesday by the House Appropriations Committee. The bill passed 30-22 with no Republican support. Nobody offered amendments that would affect nuclear weapons funding during the four-hour […]

On a 30-21 vote, the House Appropriations Committee on Monday approved a 2021 budget of about $18 billion for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) as part of a spending bill now awaiting debate on the House floor. The majority Democrats voted in favor of the measure, while Republicans on the committee […]

Remediation of the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina would be funded at about $1.5 billion for fiscal 2021 under legislation passed out of the House Appropriations Committee on a 30-21 vote Monday. That amount would be about $83 million more than the $1.46 billion enacted by Congress for fiscal 2020, which ends […]

Failure to provide funding for the Yucca Mountain geologic repository in Nevada signals a lack of leadership in Congress and at the White House toward finally resolving the decades-long impasse over disposal of the nation’s nuclear waste, Representative Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) said during a budget markup Monday. The House Appropriations Committee voted 30-21 in favor […]

The House Appropriations Committee on Sunday expressed skepticism about the Department of Energy’s approach to management of nuclear waste, even as it seems likely to approve the funding request for the upcoming budget year. In the fiscal 2021 energy and water development bill released last week, the Democrat-led panel met the department’s $27.5 million request: […]

There remains no need to transfer management of the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the Department of Energy, the House Appropriations Committee said Sunday. The Trump administration proposed relocating the 46-year-old cleanup program in budget requests both for the current fiscal 2020 and for the […]

A 2021 spending bill up for debate today in the House Appropriations Committee would prohibit development of a proposed new nuclear warhead for the Navy while upping investments in infrastructure to produce new plutonium triggers — but not by as much as the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) wants. That is according to a detailed […]

A trio of major Energy Department nuclear cleanup sites targeted for fiscal 2021 funding cuts by the White House would be restored at least to current levels in the House of Representatives, according to newly released details of a committee spending package. The House Appropriations Committee on Sunday released the detailed legislative report for its […]

The Senate last week reappointed the three serving members on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) and filled one of its vacant positions. The Senate on July 2 by voice vote approved the nominations of Thomas Summers, Joyce Connery, Jessie Hill Roberson, and Bruce Hamilton, according to the website Congress.gov. Summers is the only […]

The Senate last week adopted language that would scale back, but not eliminate, some of the new oversight and influence the chamber’s Armed Services Committee proposed to give the Pentagon over civilian nuclear weapons budgets via the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). On July 2, the Senate unanimously adopted an amendment from Sens. […]

A House Appropriations panel this week followed through with its promise not to grant a $20-billion budget request for civilian nuclear weapons programs, approving instead $18 billion for fiscal 2021 as part of a spending bill that would also forbid preparation for a nuclear yield-test, limit Pentagon influence on Department of Energy budgets, and potentially […]

The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee needed just 30 minutes Tuesday to advance its latest funding bill for consideration by the full committee. The proposal would provide Energy Department nuclear cleanup with $7.46 billion for fiscal 2021, roughly equal to the amount appropriated for fiscal 2020, which ends Sept. 30, and an increase […]

The Senate last week reappointed the three serving members on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) and filled one of its vacant positions. The Senate on July 2 by voice vote approved the nominations of Thomas Summers, Joyce Connery, Jessie Hill Roberson, and Bruce Hamilton, according to the website Congress.gov. Summers is the only […]

The Senate last week adopted language that would scale back, but not eliminate, some of the new oversight and influence the chamber’s Armed Services Committee proposed to give the Pentagon over civilian nuclear weapons budgets via the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). On July 2, the Senate unanimously adopted an amendment from Sens. […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would receive its full budget request for the upcoming 2021 federal fiscal year via the House Appropriations energy and water development bill issued this week. That covers $849.9 million for the core operations at the federal regulator, plus just under $13.5 million for the NRC Inspector General’s Office. That would be […]

The House Appropriations Committee appears ready to support the Department of Energy’s request for $27.5 million in its next budget to help stand up a program for temporary centralized storage of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants. The $49.6 billion energy and water development appropriations legislation unveiled Monday would provide that amount to cover […]

The Army Corps of Engineers has slimmed the annual funding expected to be available for the next contract for cleanup of the Luckey Site in Ohio under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP). In a second set of responses to vendor questions on the procurement, posted online Wednesday, the Army Corps said contractors […]

The Senate has approved the nominations of Thomas Summers and Joyce Connery to seats on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). The Senate approved the two by voice vote on July 2, according to the website Congress.gov. That came after both were nominated in May and then reported out of the Senate Armed Services […]

The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee needed just 30 minutes Tuesday to advance its latest funding bill for consideration by the full committee. Subcommittee members proposed no amendments to the $49.6 billion appropriations legislation covering the Department of Energy and other agencies, but did air complaints on matters including the level of nuclear-weapon […]

A House Appropriations panel on Monday followed through with its promise not to grant a $20-billion budget request for civilian nuclear weapons programs in a fiscal 2021 spending bill that would also forbid preparation for a nuclear yield-test, limit Pentagon influence on Department of Energy budgets, and potentially slow development of a proposed new nuclear […]

The Senate last week adopted language that would scale back, but not eliminate, some of the new oversight and influence the chamber’s Armed Services Committee proposed to give the Pentagon over civilian nuclear weapons budgets via the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). On Thursday, the Senate unanimously adopted an amendment from Sens. Maria […]

The House Appropriations Committee indicated Monday it plans to fund the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management at $7.46 million for fiscal 2021. The nuclear cleanup funding is roughly equal to the amount appropriated for fiscal 2020, which ends Sept. 30, and an increase of $1.4 billion from the request submitted in February by the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would receive its full budget request for the upcoming 2021 federal fiscal year via the House Appropriations energy and water development legislation unveiled Monday. That covers $849.9 million for the core operations at the federal regulator, plus just under $13.5 million for the NRC Inspector General’s Office. That would be good […]

The House Appropriations Committee appears ready to support the Department of Energy’s request for $27.5 million to help stand up a program for temporary storage of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants. The $49.6 billion energy and water appropriations legislation released Monday would provide that amount to cover DOE costs “necessary for nuclear waste disposal […]

The House Armed Services Committee gave a more than $700 million potential boost to nuclear cleanup funding at the Department of Energy just before midnight Wednesday, unanimously passing its version of the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The chairman’s mark that provided the framework for the defense policy bill would authorize the addition to […]