Most Department of Energy nuclear cleanup sites would receive modest reductions in their fiscal 2027 funding, under the budget justification document released over the weekend by the White House.
The request for the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM)’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., is $483 million, an increase of 12% from the $430 million level enacted by Congress for fiscal 2026.
Fiscal 2026 ends Sept. 30 and House and Senate Appropriators will end up setting the actual funding. As Rick Perry, secretary of energy during President Donald Trump’s first term, once told Congress that the administration request can make a good door stop.
That said, WIPP is one of the few EM sites that stands to land more money under the current Trump administration’s budget request. Major news organizations have made much of Trump’s budget request stressing guns over butter, with lots of money for defense and cuts for most other things.
Another big property, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, stands to see its budget increase slightly to $1.79 billion, under the request. That would be up from $1.77 billion in fiscal 2026.
The administration has requested $296 million for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. That would be up from $281 million in fiscal 2026, which would be a 5% boost.