A Senate Appropriations panel advanced a fiscal 2018 spending bill that would focus DOE’s near-term nuclear-waste management efforts on consent-based interim storage and cancel the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction in South Carolina.
The $38.4-billion bill from the Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee would also provide a smaller-than-requested funding increase for DOE’s active nuclear weapons programs and a larger-than-expected increase for the agency’s Cold War nuclear waste cleanup programs.
A bill summary released after Tuesday’s Capitol Hill markup did not include top-line spending for DOE, but the agency’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would receive $13.7 billion. The White House requested $13.9 million in May as part of a budget request that proposed terminating the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility designed to turn 34 metric tons of weapons-usable plutonium into fuel for commercial power plants.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a staunch advocate for MOX, voted a symbolic “no” by proxy on the subcommittee’s bill Tuesday — the panel did not actually record a roll-call vote. The House Appropriations Committee, in a 2018 DOE spending bill approved last week, denied the request to kill MOX and recommended $340 million for its construction in 2018. The House and Senate versions of the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act also instruct the Energy Department to proceed with construction.
“We also continue to be very concerned about the cost of MOX fuel fabrication facility, and we agree … with the recommendation in the President’s budget request to terminate the program,” Alexander said in prepared remarks at the markup. “We’re working with Senator Graham and the Senate Armed Services Committee to find a path forward to find a path to move plutonium out of South Carolina.”
Asked Tuesday whether Graham would attempt to amend the subcommittee’s bill and save MOX, and aide to the South Carolina senator said only: “[I] Expect you’ll hear more at full markup.”
Meanwhile, the Senate subcommittee’s bill would fund Cold War nuclear-cleanup work managed by the agency’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) at $6.6 billion, which is a little more than the $6.5 billion the administration sought.
The subcommittee did not release the text of its bill, or the detailed report that will accompany the legislation, on Tuesday. A Senate aide said the bill text and report would be published Thursday, when the full Appropriations Committee is scheduled to mark up the spending proposal.
The bill summary the subcommittee did release also did not include proposed 2018 funding for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: the main regulator for civilian nuclear programs.
