Obama Seeks FY17 Budget Amendments for New Mexico Settlement

President Barack Obama this week submitted amendments to the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2017 budget request that are intended to provide millions of dollars to help pay for a nuclear waste management settlement with the state of New Mexico.
Under a deal formalized in January, DOE will fund $74 million worth of infrastructure, emergency operations, and environmental improvements in the areas around the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

WIPP, an underground storage facility near Carlsbad for transuranic waste from the DOE nuclear complex, has been closed since a fire and subsequent, unrelated radiation release in February 2014. The radiation incident was traced to a container that originated at the DOE lab in Northern New Mexico. In each case, New Mexico alleged the incidents violated state hazardous waste rules and the facility’s operating permit.

In a letter to House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Obama requested consideration of two “offsetting amendments that would provide an increased amount to fund a portion of settlement costs related to the February 2014 incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant … including the associated activities at Los Alamos National Laboratory.” Obama said the amendments would have no impact on fiscal 2017 budget authority totals.

One amendment would add $8.4 million to the department’s defense environmental cleanup account to ensure the DOE Office of Environmental Management can pay the state $26.8 million for repairs to roads used to transport waste to WIPP. The update would increase the fiscal 2017 defense environmental cleanup request from $5,382,050,000 to $5,390,450,000.

The $8.4 million would be completely offset by an amendment canceling “available, unobligated prior-year balances in the Department’s Weapons Activities account,” according to the amendment request.
In total, the DOE-New Mexico settlement calls for spending $34 million to assist the state Department of Transportation in repairing roadways leading to WIPP, starting with the WIPP North Access Road, which runs about 13 miles from Highway 62-180 and the facility.

Obama also submitted a DOE budget amendment to begin modernization of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) infrastructure and SPR marine terminal distribution capacity augmentation, as well as amendments covering the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, and State, among other agencies.