As Congress works to complete a final funding bill for Fiscal Year 2012, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is hoping to again make the case for increased funding for several cleanup efforts that have so far rejected by lawmakers. Among the funding increases sought by EM that have been met with little support from House and Senate appropriators is additional money for cleanup work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and for the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant. For the WTP, while DOE had sought $840 million in FY 2012, both House and Senate appropriators have instead moved to keep the project at its current funding level of $740 million. Likewise, while DOE had sought $358 million for the Los Alamos cleanup, the House and Senate have so far backed a funding level of $185 million. “The reality of this situation is they do not seem to be … convinced of the merits of our case, though we will be going forward as they confer with an appeal on some of these really high, critically important areas,” Joann Luczak of EM’s Program Planning and Budget office said last week at this year’s Weapons Complex Monitor Decisionmakers’ Forum.
Concerning DOE’s request of $840 million for the WTP, which the Department has said is necessary to help ensure the project is completed on cost and schedule, Luczak said, “I think we need to stick to our guns. I think we need to stand there and tell them that we think that request was the right balanced request and included all the work and the pain that we took to get there, to make that request.” She added, “I think for us to walk away from it, I just think it says, ‘Were we serious? Did we know what we were doing? Did we do something just became we thought we should?’” While EM is looking to appeal all of the proposed FY12 funding levels rejected by Congress, which also includes funds for tank cleanup activities at Savannah River and Hanford, as well as D&D work at Portsmouth, it remains to be seen for which ones the Department will make its case, Luczak said. “I don’t know what the [DOE Chief Financial Officer] will send to OMB. I don’t know what OMB will let out of the Administration and let me send to the Hill. I’m only at the first stage,” she said. “EM has a plan, but then what does the CFO’s plan look like and what does the CFO send to OMB?”