House appropriators are proposing to have the Department of Energy use surplus National Nuclear Security Administration pension funds to help cover the cost of getting the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant back in operation after a radiological release occurred earlier this year. The House version of the Fiscal Year 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations bill would give DOE the ability to transfer up to $120 million in “pension plan payments in excess of legal requirements” to support “decontamination and other requirements” at WIPP. The text of the bill was released yesterday in advance of a planned markup the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee is scheduled to hold this morning.
DOE has not yet publicly provided information on the estimated costs for getting WIPP back in operation, though some Department officials have informally told Congressional staff that about $130 million in additional funds would be needed next year. In its FY 2015 budget request, DOE is seeking approximately $220 million for WIPP. Under the House bill, the Department would have the ability to transfer up to $90 million from the NNSA’s “weapons activities” funding, and up to $30 million from the NNSA’s “defense nuclear nonproliferation” funding.
Overall, the House bill would provide a total of approximately $4.801 billion in defense environmental cleanup funds, approximately $527 million below DOE’s request. It is unclear whether the bill includes $463 million the Department is seeking in defense environmental cleanup funding for a new federal contribution to the federal uranium enrichment D&D fund, which is used to help cover cleanup costs at the Oak Ridge, Paducah and Portsmouth sites. Site-by-site funding levels were not included in the bill text released yesterday. For non-defense environmental cleanup, the House bill would provide $241.17 million, an increase of $15 million from the Department’s request. For uranium enrichment D&D activities, the bill would provide $585.98 million, an increase of $55 million from DOE’s request.