Lawmakers cloistered on Capitol Hill are set to settle a policy dispute over a new office building for more than 1,000 defense nuclear workers in New Mexico as part of final negotiations over the 2018 National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA).
House and Senate lawmakers formally kicked off conference negotiations Wednesday on the NDAA, initiating a process that could take days or months to reconcile the chambers’ differences over military spending for the current fiscal year.
Part of the debate is how much to spend on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) new Albuquerque Complex: a planned three-story, 330,000-square-foot building on Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico that will provide new workspace for about 1,200 employees who currently work in aging facilities that date to the Manhattan Project.
The House and Senate are divided on how to proceed on the Albuquerque Complex, although the two chambers’ 2018 NDAA bills reveal a general consensus that construction should begin soon.
The Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act, if signed into law, would authorize Congress to appropriate as much as $175 million in 2018 alone for the new Albuquerque Complex. The House’s version of the defense authorization bill would authorize up to $98 million: exactly what the White House requested for the complex in the budget year that began Oct. 1.
Authorization bills, however, are generally viewed as policy prescriptions for appropriators who actually fund agencies from the U.S. Treasury — and House and Senate appropriators have radically different ideas about what to do for the NNSA in Albuquerque this fiscal year.
Senate appropriators are eager to start construction at Albuquerque, but their House counterparts have refused to open the funding taps until the NNSA produces a design for the building.
In its fiscal 2018 budget request, the Department of Energy requested $98 million for “construction for a new facility for about 1,100 federal staff in Albuquerque who currently work in inadequate facilities built in the 1940s and 1950s.”
A fiscal 2018 spending bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee in July would provide the $98 million the Trump administration requested, but a DOE spending bill approved by the full House would provide only $18 million.
“None of the project funds may be available for construction until the NNSA can provide a design for new office space that will meet program mandates to reduce the footprint and achieve operating savings,” House appropriators wrote in a report amended to their version of the DOE budget.
The existing Albuquerque Complex received only about $15 million for upkeep and maintenance under a 2017 appropriations bill signed into law in May. In 2016, the complex received only $8 million from Congress.
According to a procurement notice released last week, the NNSA is preparing to solicit bids for the new Albuquerque Complex.
The semiautonomous DOE nuclear agency expects to release plans for the new building around Nov. 17. Proposals would be due on about Jan. 2, according to a presolicitation notice posted online Oct. 19. The new facility will cost somewhere between $100 million and $250 million, the notice says. The Albuquerque Complex houses mostly administration personnel and is part of NNSA headquarters.
Like the rest of the federal government, the NNSA is funded at 2017 levels through Dec. 8 under a stopgap spending bill known as a continuing resolution. Congress passes such bills to avert a government shutdown when they cannot pass annual appropriations bills by Sept. 30.
