Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
2/27/2015
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told House appropriators this week that about $200 million in additional funding would be needed in Fiscal Year 2016 and beyond above the President’s budget request for optimal construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. Testifying before the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Feb. 26, Moniz said the Department of Energy was in the process of completing a report on alternatives for the facility while emphasizing that the $345 million requested in Fiscal Year 2016 by the Administration for construction of the facility was largely a placeholder. “To be straightforward we know that the last couple of years Administration requests have not met with the pleasure of the Congress and the requests have been increased and we’ve been told to keep constructing at this level of $345 million this year for example,” Moniz said.
Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) criticized DOE for “treading water” on the project. “You’re familiar with the expression go big or go home. Here we are not doing either it seems to me,” Fortenberry said. “Not a full-scale commitment, which might be a good thing. A treading water type of commitment that may not even get us to the proper ends of this program should it prove viable. So we’re building this McMansion with half a roof on it and that’s where we are. We’ve got to come to some resolution,” he said. “This is 20-year old architecture we’re talking about as well, past agreements, an old framework that we’re carrying on in time, lots of money being poured this way, huge opportunities to do lots of other things with limited funds, yet we keep just tacking up siding here. It’s a problem.”
The MOX facility is currently the designated pathway in an agreement with Russia for disposal of 34 metric tons of weapons grade plutonium in each country. Moniz hinted that a decision would be made later this year, once the analysis of alternatives was completed. “We are doing something. We have also been pretty clear in stating that we think a viable project to go to conclusion for the MOX Fabrication Facility probably needs another $200 million per year. I am hoping this year we can do exactly what you said, come to an agreement,” Moniz said. “There is a fork in the road. We can’t just keep taking it.”