
WASHINGTON — After passing the House and being rushed to the Senate, a three-month continuing resolution was agreed to by both chambers days before the end of fiscal year 2024.
The bill, voted on Wednesday as Congress prepared to leave town until November, passed 341-82 in the House, with unanimous Democratic approval, 132 Republicans for it and 82 Republican holdouts.
On the Senate floor shortly after passing the House, the bill passed 78-18 with unanimous Democratic support and 18 Republican holdouts.
President Joe Biden (D) had signed the continuing resolution Thursday.
The spending bill would fund the government at 2024 levels until Dec. 20. It would not allow Department of Energy nuclear programs to exceed their 2024 budgets in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025.
Under the bill, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy would get the equivalent of about $1.7 billion, a little more than the roughly $1.6 billion White House requested for fiscal 2025.
Senate appropriators wanted to essentially match the request for Nuclear Energy while House appropriators wanted to exceed it.
A bill that advanced to the House floor, but failed to pass because every Democrat opposed it and some Republicans said they wouldn’t vote for it, recommended $1.8 billion for the coming fiscal year. Most of that was for unrequested increases to advanced nuclear energy programs.
The House rolled out this week’s three-month spending bill Monday, about a week after a six-month version of the stopgap, which included stricter voter ID laws and had permission to raise funding for some security purposes at DOE defense-nuclear sites, was struck down on the House floor. Former President and current Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump (R) wanted House Republicans to refuse to vote for any continuing resolution with the ID law.
When Congress returns to Washington after the presidential election, lawmakers will engage in another debate over funding before a new president is sworn in Jan. 20.
One of the debates will be whether a final 2025 spending bill should provide only half the $55 million or so in requested for the Office of Nuclear Energy’s Integrated Waste Management System subprogram, as House Appropriators proposed.
Senate appropriators recommended meeting the request.
The Integrated Waste Management System subprogram is in the early stages of designing a federally operated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. In July, the Office of Nuclear Energy released a request for information about a 10-year contract to design and operate that facility, which pending a change in federal law could open by 2040 or so, DOE officials have said.
A DOE official last week told an industry gathering that the agency, even without the required change in federal law that would let DOE build the facility, plans to take the design for the interim spent-fuel depot to critical decision two, the point in DOE project management that immediately precedes construction.
Editor’s note, 10:46 a.m. Eastern time. The story was edited to show that President Joe Biden (D) had signed the continuing resolution Thursday.