Senate appropriators on Tuesday agreed on a short term budget that would keep the government funded at 2023 levels under mid-November.
The bill, which essentially extends the omnibus appropriations act of 2023, now needs a vote in the full Senate and the House before it can become law. Department of Energy nuclear weapons and nuclear waste programs would receive the annualized equivalent of their 2023 budgets until Nov. 17, under the stop-gap.
There are no exceptions to exceed those levels in the continuing resolution Senate appropriators produced late Tuesday, though the bill would cut out $300 million in funding for DOE advanced nuclear reactor programs that the omnibus provided.
DOE’s Office of Environment Management would stand pat with the annualized equivalent of about $8 billion, some $300 million less than House appropriators approved in a 2024 spending bill that has yet to see a floor vote. Senate appropriators proposed $8.5 billion, with extra funding from DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state, the home state of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s chairwoman, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).
The National Nuclear Security Administration would be held to about $22 billion, missing out on a roughly $2-billion raise that House and Senate appropriators agreed on over the summer.
The continuing resolution is a worst case scenario for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, which would get the annualized equivalent of $1.47 billion under the stopgap. The White House had proposed, and Senate appropriators agreed to, a 6% raise for the civilian nuclear energy and nuclear-waste office. House Appropriators proposed a 20% raise, but it came with increases to advanced reactor programs that President Joe Biden’s (D) administration did not ask for.
Even a government shutdown that lasts less than a work week should have no effect on DOE operations, according to the agency’s management plan for funding lapses.
