With just a handful of business days until the fiscal 2020 budget year begins, the Senate Appropriations Committee is rushing to approve its spending bills.
The full panel has scheduled markups for 10 a.m. Thursday of its defense; energy and water; state, foreign operations, and related programs; and labor, health and human services, education, and related agencies appropriations bills.
As of deadline Monday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, only two subcommittee markups had been posted in advance of the full session: the Appropriations defense subcommittee at 10 a.m. Tuesday and the labor, health and human services, education, and related agencies subcommittee at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday.
This will be the public’s first look at the spending measures, which were delayed while Congress hammered out a budget agreement covering the debt ceiling and budget cap. Fiscal 2020 begins on Oct. 1.
The Democrat-majority House in June passed several “minibus” appropriations bills that consolidated funding plans for multiple federal agencies.
A nearly $1 trillion measure covering the Pentagon, Department of Energy, and other agencies would provide $7.2 billion for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. That would be roughly even with current funding but well above the $6.5 billion the Trump administration proposed in March for the nuclear cleanup office.
The National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the Energy Department’s nuclear stockpile and nonproliferation operations, would get $15.9 billion under the House bill. That is $665.7 million above present funding but about $600 million less than the White House wants.
The House zeroed out the administration’s request for about $110 million for the Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission to resume licensing of the planned nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev. Instead, it offered $47.5 million for “integrated” management of the nation’s radioactive waste, with $25 million directed to advance consolidated storage operations. The minibus would provide $130 million for the NRC, which derives most of its funding from licensee fees. It would also block the proposal to shift the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) to the Energy Department.
