After two days of debate, the House’s version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed the House floor this week mainly on party lines at 216-212.
The defense policy bill, which also sets spending caps for the appropriations bills, would authorize $32.76 billion in funding for the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
As for the Office of Environmental Management (EM), it would be authorized to spend nearly $7.2 billion on Defense Environmental Cleanup, which accounts for the bulk of the EM budget. That is up from the roughly $7 billion requested by the White House, according to the text of the legislation.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board would be authorized to spend up to $45 million.
During debate Tuesday and Wednesday, a couple of nuclear amendments passed through in a series of en bloc amendments, or a series of usually uncontroversial amendments grouped together. One amendment by Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) would designate NNSA to “lead the technical nuclear forensics efforts of the United States.”
The House headed to recess Thursday, July 23 until Aug. 31, while the Senate starts its recess Aug. 7 and comes back Sept. 11.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) had an amendment passed that would direct the Defense Secretary and NNSA’s administrator to give preference to sourcing uranium and other critical minerals in the United States before seeking foreign sources.