The fiscal 2027 House Energy and Water Appropriations bill text, which did not give a total number for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, was released Wednesday and waits to be debated on the House floor.
The bill text and any amendments submitted are available online. While the bill was scheduled to be debated on the House floor this week, debate and votes were postponed.
Under the NNSA account, this version of the bill would give $22.07 billion toward weapons activities, $2.08 billion toward defense nuclear nonproliferation, $2.4 billion toward naval reactors and $525 million toward federal salaries and expenses.
The House Appropriations Committee has raised concern with the Donald Trump administration’s “risky” approach to seeking significant fiscal 2027 funding for key priorities through the “uncertain” reconciliation process, as the panel marked up and advanced its $1.07 trillion fiscal year 2027 defense spending bill Wednesday.
“Rather than using the reconciliation process as a tool to scale up and accelerate investments beyond the base budget, the mandatory request includes funding for several critical efforts, such as munitions, which should have been built into the base discretionary request,” Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), chair of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said during the markup. “The two legislative vehicles are entirely separate tracks, with different timelines, committees of jurisdiction and approval processes. This approach is risky and uncoordinated.”
In terms of the defense spending bill itself, Calvert said the bill “supports the president’s budget request to appropriately prioritize critical modernization efforts,” and “among the most critical [investments] are the components of the nuclear triad, all undergoing concurrent upgrade and replacement.”
Kaveh Farzad, President Trump’s pick to be assistant secretary of energy for International Affairs, told the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee Tuesday he would use the Department of Energy’s national labs to help the U.S. win the artificial intelligence (AI) race.
Farzad said in his testimony, AI will help advance the Trump administration’s “energy dominance” agenda. “This effort will include leveraging our 17 national labs to win the AI race and accelerate technology adoption across markets.”
Farzad is a managing director for FGS Global, who advises large organizations on political and policy risks. He has previously worked for the State Department. He was nominated by Trump in March. In addition to Farzad, the committee also heard testimony from two nominees for high-ranking jobs in the Interior Department.
The Donald Trump administration has officially submitted an $87.6 billion supplemental funding request to Congress, which includes $67.1 billion for the Pentagon to cover costs associated with the U.S.’ war in Iran.
Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), a senior member on the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters earlier this month that Congress needed the Pentagon’s Iran supplemental funding request “yesterday,” noting the ongoing lack of details from the department on its plan for replenishing munitions stockpiles. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), who leads the defense subcommittee, offered a statement of initial support for the supplemental, while noting they “look forward to fully reviewing the details of the request with our colleagues.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, also released a statement pointing to her party’s likely opposition to any forthcoming supplemental spending measure that addresses the request. “President Trump started a war of choice in Iran without any coherent purpose or strategy. Not only is President Trump jeopardizing our security, but his actions have cost Americans an estimated $132 billion in higher prices for gas and energy while families are already struggling to pay their bills,” DeLauro said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) unveiled an interactive map that shows how much spent nuclear fuel is produced around the world and where it sits.
IAEA said in a Monday press release that this tool is the second edition of its Global SNF Inventory, with the first being published in 2019 based on data presented at the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management as infographics.
This new version of the interactive tool is built on data submitted under 2025’s reporting cycle of the Joint Convention, with additional publicly available information. According to the tool, the global amount of spent nuclear fuel is nearly 448,000 tonnes of heavy metal (tHM). Of that total amount, the United States has produced 94,926 tHM, which makes up 21.2% of the world total. Nearly three quarters of the near 448,000 tHM, about 322,000 tonnes, are in storage and the other quarter, about 126,000 tonnes or 28% of spent nuclear fuel, has been reprocessed.