Like a spending bill passed Thursday by the full House of Representatives, the National Defense Authorization Act that cleared Senate Armed Services last week, restores $5.7 million in community funds the Joe Biden White House left out of its fiscal 2022 budget request for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
That is according to a summary of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released by the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The House bill would also provide $1.6 million in community funds the DOE did not include in its budget proposal at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Lawmakers have criticized Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm for leaving out community funds for payments in lieu of taxes at the sites. The payments are meant to compensate localities around DOE nuclear sites for the non-taxable land controlled by the feds.
The Senate Armed Services’ NDAA bill also calls upon the comptroller general who heads the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to continue with other studies on issues affecting the DOE Office of Environmental Management.
Congress tasked GAO with assessing the status of cleanup at Los Alamos National Laboratory as well as trends at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, which disposes of defense-related transuranic waste. Both facilities are in New Mexico.
Likewise, GAO’s ongoing review of work at the Hanford Site should continue, according to the NDAA bill. In addition to cost, schedule and performance, the startup of direct-feed low-activity waste treatment, scheduled by the end of 2023, should be analyzed. Options for direct-feed high-level waste should also be studied, according to the document.
GAO should do an assessment of the nuclear cleanup office’s plans for operating the depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion plants at the Paducah Site in Kentucky and the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, according to the defense bill summary. The GAO should evaluate how well the facilities are meeting their performance goals, according to the NDAA bill.
Finally, the NDAA document instructs GAO to do an analysis of the Environmental Management’s implementation of the end state contracting model, and whether the office has the resources it needs to make it successful.
At press time Friday, a detailed version of the legislation with the due dates was not available.
