Congress is pushing for an updated cost assessment of the MOX project following a congressionally mandated independent review this summer that priced the project’s life-cycle expense at $51 billion. Despite controversial hearings in Congress and indications from the Department of Energy that the project is too expensive, President Barack Obama on Nov. 25 signed the fiscal 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which provides $345 million for construction of the MOX project’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). The facility is being constructed at the Savannah River Site and is expected to convert 34 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel under a U.S. nonproliferation agreement with Russia.
The NDAA includes language that directs DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz to prepare "an updated performance baseline for construction and project support activities relating to the MOX facility." U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R–S.C.), a MOX advocate, said the language mandates cost and scheduling markers that are used to judge performance for the construction of the project. Re-evaluating the cost and construction baselines will be used to get the contractors and DOE on the same page in terms of costs and timeline, Wilson said.
The NDAA language also requires the Obama administration to use the updated performance baseline for its fiscal 2017 budget request, which is usually released in February or March. Obama’s fiscal 2015 request called for placing the MOX program in cold standby, which would have frozen construction at the MFFF while DOE officials searched for cheaper methods to dispose of the plutonium. But after a long summer in which the state of South Carolina filed and dropped a suit against DOE for allegedly breaking promises regarding MOX, Congress eventually funded MFFF construction.
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