Todd Jacobson
WC Monitor
6/27/2014
WC Monitor
6/27/2014
House lawmakers are expected to take up the Fiscal Year 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations Act after taking a break for the Independence Day recess, though the prospects for completing the bill have been thrown into turmoil with the Senate version of the bill stalled. The bill, which funds the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, along with other DOE efforts, will be considered under a modified open rule, meaning an unlimited amount of amendments will be allowed to be offered by lawmakers. The House Appropriations Committee cleared the bill last week, and the House Rules Committee established the parameters for debating the bill this week, though the bill isn’t likely to be taken up by the full House until the week of July 7, when lawmakers return from a brief one-week recess for Independence Day.
The House version of the Fiscal Year 2015 energy appropriations bill would provide a total of approximately $4.8 billion for DOE’s defense environmental cleanup activities, approximately $527 million below DOE’s request. The bill would not implement a DOE proposal to reauthorize payments into the federal uranium enrichment D&D fund, for which the Department had sought $463 million in defense environmental cleanup funding. The House bill would provide, though, $241.2 million for non-defense environmental cleanup, an increase of $15 million from the Department’s request; and approximately $585.98 million for uranium enrichment D&D activities, an increase of $55 million from DOE’s request.
