An Idaho congressman on Tuesday said he believes Congress again will choose to keep a nuclear cleanup program with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, instead of allowing it to be transferred to the Department of Energy.
The program is the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), which manages remediation of properties contaminated from the 1940s to 1960s by federal nuclear weapons and nuclear energy projects.
In budget requests for the current fiscal 2020 and the upcoming fiscal 2021, the Trump administration has proposed shifting management and funding for the program to the Energy Department. The Army Corps would continue to handle the actual site work, reimbursed by DOE.
Congress rejected the proposal in 2020 appropriations legislation signed into law in December. In a Tuesday hearing on the Army Corps of Engineers’ spending plan for the budget year beginning Oct. 1, House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee Ranking Member Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said Congress “is likely to” keep the FUSRAP budget with the Army Corps. He did not elaborate, and the subject was not further discussed at the hearing.
The Energy Department ran the program until 1997, when Congress transferred it to the Army Corps. FUSRAP manages 23 active cleanup sites in 10 states. It is budgeted at $200 million for the federal budget year ending Sept. 30. The Energy Department wants $150 million in fiscal 2021.
Under the administration plan for 2021, FUSRAP would be managed by DOE’s Office of Legacy Management, which already determines which sites are eligible for inclusion in FUSRAP and conducts long-term monitoring once cleanup is completed.
Both agencies have touted the benefits of giving DOE ownership of the program, including improved planning and reducing costs for transitioning properties from active cleanup to stewardship;
For two consecutive budget cycles, Simpson has questioned the value in transferring the program.
