Congress passes fiscal ‘24 NDAA; nuclear energy reforms gone

President Joe Biden (D) on Friday was set to sign a fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that jettisoned a package of nuclear energy reforms that would have affected the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Both chambers of Congress approved the legislation by overwhelming majorities this week. The final bill, unveiled last week after closed-door negotiations between a group of Representatives and Senators, is a compromise version of separate House and Senate bills.

The Senate version of the bill included a large package of nuclear energy reforms written by Sen. Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.). The House version had no equivalent proposals and, before Thanksgiving, negotiators working on the final bill threw out Capito’s reforms.

A House Committee has since passed its own package of nuclear energy policies, the Atomic Energy Advancement Act, and Capito has continued the drumbeat to pass her proposal, the ADVANCE Act, as standalone legislation.

The House passed the final 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Thursday by 407-9 with 18 not voting. The Senate passed the bill Wednesday by 87-13. Biden has said he would sign the bill, which sets policy and spending limits for national defense programs, including those managed by the Department of Energy. 

The NDAA does not provide funding for federal agencies. Separate appropriations bills do that. DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory commission and some federal agencies are funded at 2023 levels through Jan. 19. The Department of Defense and another set of agencies are funded Feb. 2. 

Congress had not unveiled permanent 2024 spending bills as of Friday.

As he said he would, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Miss.) voted “nay” on the compromise NDAA, which did not extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) for 19 years, as he and a small bipartisan block of Senators had proposed. RECA provides health care benefits to people sickened by radiation from nuclear weapon sites.