The House Armed Services Committee is supporting continued construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in the chairman’s mark of the Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, despite the Department of Energy’s plans to suspend work on the project. In its FY’15 budget request, the National Nuclear Security Administration said it would put the MOX plant into “cold standby” and requested $196 million for the project, but the legislation would increase that by $120 million to a total of $316 million. It would “require the Secretary of Energy to specifically carry out construction and program support activities with fiscal year 2015 funds authorized for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) for construction and program support activities,” the bill states.
The House NDAA is the first opportunity in a FY’15 bill for lawmakers to weigh in on the NNSA’s plans for MOX. It asks DOE to launch a study to validate DOE’s surplus plutonium disposition options study for MOX, and asks for a report from DOE within 270 days. The legislation would also boost other NNSA programs. Weapons activities stand at about $8.31 billion in the request but are bumped to $8.45 billion in the NDAA, while nonproliferation programs stand at $1.56 million in the request but go up to $1.69 million in the bill.
