The House of Representatives approved the final version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act with a veto-proof margin Tuesday evening, sending the bill and its new nuclear waste and weapons policies to the Senate.
The House passed the bill 300-135 , with every member voting. Among other things, the measure would require the Department of Energy to annually disclose missed milestones on legacy nuclear-weapons cleanup projects and allow the Pentagon-controlled Nuclear Weapons Council to give a formal thumbs up or thumbs down to DOE’s nuclear-weapons budget request each year before the request goes to the White House for final approval.
President Donald Trump has threatened to veto the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for reasons unrelated to nuclear waste or weapons programs, or Pentagon spending. The Senate had not scheduled floor votes for the bill at deadline for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.
The 2021 NDAA would authorize some $5.8 billion for defense environmental cleanup, the single largest account at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. That’s a little less than $1 billion over than the White House’s request for the account and roughly $400 million less than these programs received in the 2020 budget. For Environmental Management overall, House and Senate appropriators proposed keeping the 2021 budget about flat, at a little over $7.5 billion or so. Authorization bills set spending limits and policy for appropriators, who provide funds for agencies in separate legislation.
For active nuclear weapons programs managed by DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, the NDAA authorizes roughly the $20 billion requested. That’s about $3 billion over the 2020 budget. House appropriators declined to match that request in a spending bill passed this summer, proposing about $18 billion instead. The Senate Appropriations Committee has proposed the requested funding for the NNSA.
Whether the NNSA gets the big raise it seeks depends on the outcome of ongoing budget negotiations. The entire federal government is still funded at 2020 levels, under a continuing resolution that runs through Friday, but which Congress had planned to extend at least a week, through Dec. 18.
