Congress is working on a stopgap spending bill that will, by and large, keep the Energy Department funded at 2017 levels until mid-December, leading lawmakers and President Donald Trump said Wednesday.
The so-called continuing resolution will fund the federal government through Dec. 15, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) announced Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) confirmed the news shortly afterward in a hallway press conference on Capitol Hill and said he would support the stopgap budget.
For the current fiscal 2017, DOE received more than $30 million in funding, including some $6.4 billion for the Cold War nuclear cleanup managed by the agency’s Office of Environmental Management and nearly $13 billion for the active weapons and nonproliferation programs managed by the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
The congressional leaders announced the agreement following a Wednesday morning White House meeting between Trump and Democratic and Republican leaders. Trump, in a Wednesday press conference aboard Air Force One, said he would sign the measure.
A continuing resolution would put on hold, at least temporarily, the Trump administration’s plans to transfer a pair of excess NNSA facilities to Environmental Management for final cleanup. It would also prevent DOE from getting the funds the White House requested for 2018 to restart an application to license Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., as a permanent nuclear-waste repository.
Likewise, under a continuing resolution, the NNSA would not get the roughly $1-billion raise the administration requested — most of which the House and Senate are prepared to grant.
Congress can write exceptions to the 2017 budget limits into a continuing resolution if it wishes. These so-called anomalies allow federal agencies to spend more or less than the prior-year budget, even when funded by a stopgap.
A DOE spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment Wednesday.
