House appropriators are pushing back against the Department of Energy’s current plan to put the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant into a long-term surveillance-and-maintenance state once it’s returned from USEC, and instead are directing the Department to submit information that “clearly describes” DOE’s anticipated time line for decommissioning the plant. “The Department is obligated to decommission and decontaminate the gaseous diffusion plant and other structures at the Paducah site in a timely fashion, but has done a poor job of explaining its future cleanup plans to the Committee, stakeholders and the public. The Committee does not support placing the gaseous diffusion plant in a cold and dark state,” says the report accompanying the House version of the FY 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations bill. The text of the report was released yesterday.

The House bill would match DOE’s FY 2015 request of approximately $207 million for D&D activities at Paducah. The House report also notes, though, that DOE also plans to carryover $107 million in funding at Paducah into next year, which would give the Department a total of approximately $314 million. The report would direct DOE to provide appropriations with a plan within 30 days that “clearly describes the anticipated time line for decontamination and decommissioning of the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant and that includes the Department’s five-year projected cost and schedule planning assumptions for accomplishing work at the site.”