The House Appropriations Committee Thursday night passed the Energy & Water Development Appropriations bill for fiscal 2026, which trims the budget of the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management to $7.7 billion, down from more than $8.4 billion in the current fiscal year.
The measure passed 35-27 in the House committee and now moves to the full House for consideration.
The full Appropriations Committee approved the spending plan which has less money for the DOE nuclear cleanup office than the fiscal 2025 appropriation or the amount requested by the Donald Trump White House.
More than a month ago, the Trump administration sought $8.1 billion for the Environmental Management (EM) office for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, down from the more than $8.4 billion appropriated in fiscal 2025.
The $7.7 billion proposed for EM breaks down like this:
Defense Environmental Cleanup, the largest tranche of money in EM would be set at $6.5 billion. Non-Defense Environmental Cleanup, used for remediation not directly linked to national defense, would be $338 million. The Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning (UED&D) Fund would receive $844 million. UED&D helps pay for environmental work at former gaseous diffusion plant sites at Paducah, Ky., Piketon, Ohio and Oak Ridge Tenn.
“The committee notes the Office of Environmental Management’s unobligated balance of $900,000,000,” according to the bill report. “Given resources’ constraints, the committee must make difficult tradeoffs to prioritize the greatest needs in a fiscally responsible manner,” according to the report.
The text of the report also instructs Environmental Management to work with the Department of Defense and private industry to “identify opportunities to make Strontium-90 from the Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility (WESF) at the Hanford Site available for commercial beneficial reuse,” according to the report. Strontium-90 has potential national security and scientific applications and the transfer of radioactive capsules from the WESF into dry casks storage represents an opportunity for access, the report goes on to say.
The bill would provide more than $2.8 billion for the Hanford Site in Washington state. Cleanup of the former plutonium production property typically accounts for at least a third of the Environmental Management budget.
Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose district abuts the Hanford site, praised the bill’s prioritization of Hanford cleanup.
”While there are further changes and funding increases that I would like to see in this legislation, specifically for Hanford and for PNNL [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory], it serves as a strong starting point as we prepare to work with the Senate to support our nation’s energy needs,” Newhouse said in a statement.
“We continue to fulfill our legacy responsibilities to remediate contaminated sites by funding Department of Energy cleanup activities at a total of $7.7 billion,” Energy and Water Chairman Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), whose district abuts the Oak Ridge Site, siad earlier in the week. “The bill strengthens our nation’s energy security, including $1.8 billion for base nuclear energy programs and additional funding, including credit subsidy financing, for advanced nuclear reactors and small modular reactors.”
The energy and water appropriations bill would give $25.317 billion to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). That’s around $1.182 billion above the fiscal 2025 levels, although the funding for the Department of Energy as a whole is $1.396 billion below 2025 levels at $48.774 billion.
