The Senate on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed the final version of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, clearing the way for President Donald Trump to sign a bill that would tighten congressional oversight of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state.
The $717 billion bill sailed through on an 87-10 vote, less than a week after the House approved the bicameral compromise version of the measure by a 359-54 tally.
The legislation sets spending limits and policy for defense programs for the budget year beginning Oct. 1, including most of the Cold War-nuclear-cleanup managed by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management.
The White House had not issued a statement of administration policy about the bill at deadline Friday for Weapons Complex Monitor. The administration griped about certain provisions in both the House and Senate versions of the NDAA earlier this year, but made no veto threats.
The NDAA authorizes more than $5.5 billion in defense environmental cleanup funding for the Environmental Management office. That spending line makes up most of the cleanup office’s annual budget.
Both the House and Senate have passed appropriations bills seeking roughly $7 billion in 2019 for the Cold War nuclear-waste-cleanup overseen by the Environmental Management office. The Senate seeks $7.2 billion for cleanup, $300 million more than the $6.9 billion sought by the House. No final negotiations have happened yet on the “minibus” appropriations package that includes the Energy Department funding.
The NDAA does not address the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund and non-defense environmental cleanup.
If the NDAA measure is signed, the bill would require DOE to speedily notify Congress of any reported airborne contamination, radioactive or hazardous, at the Hanford Site. It would also include a measure, promoted by Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), to encourage the secretary of energy to impose penalties against contractors that retaliate against whistleblowers.
The compromise bill retained a Senate measure telling the secretary of energy to ask for a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine evaluation of cleanup efforts under the Office of Environmental Management.
The Senate deferred to a House provision to extend Hanford’s Office of River Protection until 2024. The existing sunset date is Sept. 30, 2019. The Office of Environmental Management could extend it beyond that point if it is determined termination would disrupt waste storage tank operations at Hanford.
The compromise version also authorized up to $708 million in defense environmental funding for the Hanford Richland Operations Office and up to $1.44 billion for the Office of River Protection, according to the joint explanatory statement.
The NDAA compromise authorizes $1.42 billion in defense environmental funding for the Savannah River Site, which is less than the $1.47 billion sought by the Trump administration.
The bill would also authorize the NNSA to spend $220 million to build the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site. The agency wants to cancel construction and turn the plant into a factory for fissile nuclear-weapon cores called plutonium pits.
Should the MOX project be terminated, the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico could become the ultimate destination for disposal of 34 metric tons of processed plutonium that for now is intended to be converted into commercial nuclear reactor fuel.
The NDAA allows $403 million in WIPP defense environmental funding, which is $80 million more than fiscal 2018, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Thursday in a press release. The WIPP funding includes $84 million toward building a new ventilation system to dramatically improve underground airflow. There is also up to $47 million to replace aging infrastructure and make needed repairs that have accumulated over time.
The administration’s full $191.6 million request for soil and water work, and removal of radioactive waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, is authorized in the NDAA, Heinrich said. The lawmaker said he is working with Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) to increase the funding in the DOE appropriations bill to $220 million for LANL cleanup, $29 million above the request.
