The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted 86-14 to pass its $740.5-billion National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2021, which now faces a conference committee to iron out differences between it and the House version of the defense policy bill passed earlier this week.
The NDAA crafted by the Senate Armed Services Committee would put a $5.1 billion cap on defense environmental spending, the largest bloc of funds for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. That would be $100 million more than the roughly $5 billion proposed by the Donald Trump administration for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.
The Senate bill would authorize $220 million in nuclear cleanup spending for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. That is equal with current funding and to the amount in the House NDAA, but $100 million above the White House budget.
Most other defense environmental line items in the Senate bill are in keeping with the administration request.
The National Defense Authorization Act only sets policy and spending limits for applicable programs, primarily at the Pentagon, with the actual money provided via congressional appropriations bills. There are two separate appropriations tranches for DOE cleanup jobs: non-defense environmental cleanup and the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning (UED&D) Fund.
The administration sought $6.1 billion in total for DOE Environmental Management, while the House Appropriations Committee this month approved at least $7.5 billion for the nuclear cleanup office in an energy and water bill. That legislation is expected to be added to other appropriations bills for a “minibus” to bc considered soon on the House floor.
Senate appropriators have yet to issue any 2021 budget proposals.
The Senate version of the NDAA also would enact various measures designed to improve recordkeeping and accountability at the Office of Environmental Management. This includes requiring theoffice to report environmental liability at each of 16 Cold War and Manhattan Project sites each year when DOE files its budget request with Congress.
The Senate bill also requires better reporting by DOE to Capitol Hill regarding missed nuclear remediation milestones set by legal settlements or deals with state governments or other federal agencies.
The full House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 295-125 to approve its own version of the fiscal 2021 NDAA, which also keeps the top line at $740.5 billion, although it divvies up the money a bit differently.
That NDAA would allow $5.7 billion defense environmental cleanup spending at DOE, more than $700 million above what the administration sought. The House bill would increase authorized spending at the Hanford Site in Washington state to $2.5 billion in total, or roughly $900 million than what was sought by the Energy Department.
President Donald Trump has threatened to veto the House bill, over matters including removing the names of Confederate officers from U.S. military bases. The vote tally for the lower-chamber bill, though, is nominally enough to overcome a veto.
Texas Congressman Fails to Attach WIPP Amendment to House NDAA
A Texas congressman wants to grant the Energy Department authority to dispose of certain foreign-generated radioactive material at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. But he won’t reach that goal via the NDAA.
Rep. Pete Olson (R) unsuccessfully proposed an amendment to the House bill to allow disposal of americium-241 in the WIPP underground.
The amendment, which is similar to one Olson unsuccessfully tried last year, notes americium-241 is often co-located with material that is eligible for disposal at the United States’ sole repository for defense-related transuranic waste.
The material, which could conceivably be used in a radiological “dirty bomb,” is often co-located with transuranic waste that is eligible for WIPP disposal. The Rules Committee did not vote to make the amendment “in order,” which would have allowed the proposal to be voted upon on the House floor, a congressional staffer said Tuesday.
Olson has also this year drafted legislation, H.R. 7558, the Foreign Americium Disposal and Storage Act, which would direct the same objective of disposing of americium-241 at WIPP. The bill, which would clarify DOE’s authority to dispose of certain foreign-sourced material at the facility, was proposed this month and referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
In a House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee hearing July 14, Olson asked Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette to support disposal of the americium-241 at WIPP. Brouillette said he had yet to read the legislation, but would take a look at it.
Americium has been used in smoke detectors, paint, and other applications. The United States stopped making americium-241 in 2005, Olson said, describing it as very radioactive and cancer-causing. But the americium-241 in the country currently has no disposal path, although it would meet the risk profile of TRU waste being disposed of at the underground salt mine, and would only generate one or two shipments per year to WIPP, Olson said during the hearing.
