PHOENIX — Top officials in the Energy Department’s cleanup program of its Cold War nuclear complex are angling for a piece of the infrastructure spending spree promised by President Donald Trump, but the agency’s acting Environmental Management boss has yet to receive any formal direction from the new administration about which DOE programs, if any, qualify for such a funding infusion.
“Because we just recently received a confirmed secretary, we are still awaiting our discussions with them on what our priorities should be,” Sue Cange, DOE’s acting assistant secretary for environmental management, told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing here in a brief interview at the annual Waste Management Symposium. “I am looking forward to discussing with the secretary what his agenda will be and what he believes the priorities for EM [Environmental Management] should be.”
Cange sidestepped a question about whether she has had contact with other Trump administration officials about their priorities for the $6 billion-a-year Office of Environmental Management. Trump last week proposed steep cuts to non-military spending outside of federal entitlement programs. DOE is in this category, and the proposed cuts, if approved by Congress, would amount to a 10-percent budget slash if applied evenly to all affected agencies.
Meanwhile, another EM official expressed hope that Trump’s not-yet-proposed $1 trilion infrastructure infusion would help balance any budget cuts for agencies such as DOE.
“I think the entire EM porfolio could be gauged as investment in infrastructure,” Stacy Charboneau, EM associate principal deputy assistant secretary for field operations, told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing after a panel discussion with other EM officials.“If there is going to be an investment in infrastructure, we’re certainly going to be able to utilize some of those additional investments in the EM program that may come outside of our normal standard appropriations process.”
Charboneau clarified, however, that she has heard “nothing official through any chain yet” about an possible infrastructure infusion — something for which Congress would have to appropriate funds in a fashion analogous to the stimulus program the Barack Obama administration helped steer through Congress in 2008 and 2009.
