Cleanup work underway at the Los Alamos National Laboratory appears to be a likely candidate to benefit from the reprogramming request the Department of Energy is working to submit to Congress, WC Monitor has learned. Much of the details of the request remain unclear, such as the amounts of funding to be transferred and the sites that would be the sources of such funding. DOE cleanup chief David Huizenga did say last week, though, that the proposal would entail “several million dollars.” DOE’s Office of Environmental Management declined to respond to a request for comment yesterday.
EM is likely looking to shift funding to Los Alamos to ensure that work underway to disposition transuranic waste to meet a commitment to the state of New Mexico is not impacted. The lab is currently working with less cleanup funding than was anticipated in Fiscal Year 2013 thanks to the Continuing Resolution now set to fund DOE through the end of the fiscal year. Under the CR, cleanup work at Los Alamos is being funded at the FY 2012 appropriated level of approximately $188 million—approximately $50 million below the Department of Energy’s FY 2013 budget request. Last fall, Los Alamos cleanup chief Jeff Mousseau told WC Monitor that the lab would likely “have a problem meeting all of our obligations” if the reduced funding level lasted the entire fiscal year. DOE has also said that as a result of sequestration, Los Alamos’ budget is set to go down by approximately $61 million, though it is unclear how much of that reduction applies to cleanup funding.