The U.S. Senate is set to vote today on its version of the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which would allow appropriators to provide the White House’s requested level of funding for nuclear-weapon modernization programs at the Department of Energy and the Pentagon.
The bill also would authorize the roughly $5.5 billion requested for defense environmental cleanup under DOE’s Office of Environmental Management: the largest pool of funding in the office’s portfolio of programs to remediate sites contaminated by Cold War nuclear-weapons development.
However, it rejects the Trump administration’s $26 million request for defense nuclear waste disposal. That money, part of a larger DOE request for $116 million, would be used to resume licensing of the radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
Senators were scheduled to vote at 1:45 p.m. Eastern time.
Some senators proposed defense-nuclear amendments to the NDAA, but none were scheduled for floor votes at deadline. One amendment would increase funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s inertial confinement fusion ignition and high-yield program; another would create a “Congressional Commission on Preventing, Countering, and Responding to Nuclear and Radiological Terrorism.”
Outside of DOE, the Senate bill would approve major changes to the independent federal nuclear-health-and-safety watchdog, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). The upper chamber’s NDAA would forbid DNFSB members from serving consecutive terms or from remaining on the board after their five-year term expires.
The Senate, citing findings from a 2018 report from the federally funded National Academy of Public Administration, said the five-member DNFSB appears to provide little value to DOE and suffers from a lack of collegiality among board members.
The Senate’s NDAA is different from the NDAA the House of Representatives plans to debate after Congress’ weeklong Independence Day recess, which begins Monday. Sooner or later, lawmakers will have to reconcile the two bills, which differ sharply on certain nuclear-weapons programs.
The lower chamber’s bill would reduce funding for next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile programs at DOE and the Pentagon, and bar deployment of the W76-2 low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead. The House NDAA would approve $15.8 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration, while the Senate’s NDAA would provide $16.5 billion as requested.
The House NDAA would also approve $5.6 million for defense environmental cleanup.
