Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
5/9/2014
The House Appropriations Committee formally unveiled its subcommittee allocations for Fiscal Year 2015 this week, and lawmakers on the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee will have a little less funding to work with this year. The committee set the Energy and Water allocation at $34.010 billion, $50 million less than a year ago, which could create challenges as appropriators divide money among the various agencies overseen by the subcommittee, including the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. The allocations were governed by a $1.014 trillion ceiling on discretionary spending established as part of a budget deal in December.
The spending cap is divided into defense ($521.3 billion) and non-defense ($492.4 billion), but the committee did not reveal the defense/non-defense breakdown for the subcommittees this week. “We have tried to fairly spread these reductions accordingly, and no subcommittee has been increased by more than 2 percent or reduced by more than 3 percent,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said this week. “I believe that these are fair and reasonable allocations, given the overall framework provided to the Committee by the budget agreement.”
‘It’s Going to be Tough’
The Obama Administration requested $8.3 billion for the NNSA’s weapons program in FY 2015, a $533.9 increase, while it asked for $1.6 billion for the agency’s nonproliferation work, a cut of $398.4 million from FY 2014 levels. Appropriators on the Energy and Water subcommittee will have to balance that funding with other issues like the potential need for additional funding at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, possible extra funding for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility that the Department plans to put in cold standby at the Savannah River Site, and uranium enrichment research and development. “Those are three huge things right there that would total hundreds of millions of dollars, and the President’s request is already $300 million above the defense level,” one Congressional aide told NS&D Monitor. “It’s going to be tough.” Another Congressional aide said that competing priorities could make the weapons budget and NNSA Naval Reactors budget a target. “There is quite a lot of fat in weapons that could be cut and there is some Naval Reactors funding that could be up for grabs,” the aide said.
The Senate Appropriations Committee hasn’t established its subcommittee allocations yet, and though it will be using the same $1.014 trillion top line, it can—and will—divide up the money differently, and the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee is expected to have more than the $34.01 billion provided to its House counterparts. “At least we’re all starting from the same top line,” another Congressional aide said. “Even though there are differences in priorities and funding levels for the agencies there is less room for maneuvering than if we were starting from different top line levels. In the past, we’ve been billions of dollars apart.”
