The House Appropriations Committee passed 34-25 its version of a bill on Wednesday that would give $27 billion to the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for fiscal 2027.
That number is $1.67 billion more than was enacted for the agency in charge of maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile in fiscal 2026. However, it is also almost $6 billion less than the Donald Trump administration requested for NNSA for fiscal 2027.
Of note, $50.36 billion was requested for DOE, which is $456 million below fiscal 2026 enacted levels, according to the bill’s summary.
The bill passed out of the Energy and Water subcommittee on Friday, May 15. It now heads to the House floor some time after Congress’s scheduled recess Memorial Day week.
The bill requested $22.07 billion for weapons activities, around $1.6 billion more than fiscal 2026 enacted levels but $5.4 billion less than what the White House requested.
A point of contention among Democratic lawmakers was the defense nuclear nonproliferation account. The bill requested $2.08 billion, around $300 million less than both fiscal 2026 enacted levels and White House fiscal 2027 requested levels.
“This is a fiscally responsible bill that will strengthen our national security, advance our energy independence, and deliver reliable, affordable energy for the American people,” Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), chairman of the subcommittee, said in his opening remarks at Wednesday’s markup.
Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) also said the $8.525 billion in DOE’s Office of Science would include a boost to the Genesis Mission.
Fleischmann also had a manager’s amendment that passed unanimously by voice vote. It included a provision that expressed support for the Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) in Tennessee, and encouraged NNSA to strengthen “domestic manufacturing capacity for specialized components for centrifuge qualification and production.” The DUECE pilot plant is being developed at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to supply unobligated enriched uranium for national defense purposes.