The full Senate is scheduled to vote at 5:30 p.m. today on an appropriations package including the Department of Energy’s proposed fiscal 2019 budget.
The so-called minibus spending legislation is a combination of three appropriations bills, one of which is an Energy and Water Development act with some $35 billion in proposed funding for the Department of Energy.
If the Senate approves its minibus, the bill will have to be reconciled with a version the House passed in May before President Donald Trump can sign the 2019 DOE budget into law. The 2019 fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
The Senate’s minibus includes: a little under $15 billion for actives weapons, nonproliferation, and naval reactor programs managed by the National Nuclear Security Administration; around $7 billion for the Cold War nuclear-cleanup programs managed by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management; and some $910 million for the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates civilian nuclear power and waste.
Notably, the Senate’s bill would provide no money for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev. The Obama administration defunded the licensing program starting in 2010, but the Trump administration wants to resume the effort. The House has been all-in on the Yucca restart, but the Senate has block funding for the repository in its past two appropriations bills.
A number of senators have proposed amendments for the bill’s nuclear weapons and nuclear waste budgets, but there will be only hours to act on those before the scheduled vote Monday.
