Budget Brief: Congress Facing Tight Timeline to Avoid Shutdown

Bloomberg Staff | 9/5/23

Lawmakers have little time to determine a strategy avoiding a shutdown and meeting disaster aid needs before the Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government. 

Senators return to Washington today with 17 legislative days before the deadline. House members return next week with only 11 legislative days left. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) agreed on the general idea of a stopgap measure to fund the government until early December, while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last week said such a bill was probable. 

Schumer fired a preemptive shot Friday, warning against “hostage-taking” from “extreme” House Republicans, and even McConnell said the House GOP’s spending plans have no chance in the Senate. 

“When the Senate returns next week, our focus will be on funding the government,” Schumer wrote in an open letter. “The only way to avoid a shutdown is through bipartisanship.”

It’s unclear where exactly the necessary votes will come from and how much additional spending will be attached.

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September 11-13, 2023
Arlington, VA

Join us for the 9th annual National Cleanup Workshop at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, VA. Register today to hear from the Secretary of Energy, House Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Subcommittee Chairman Chuck Fleischmann (TN), Special Assistant Ike White and other EM leadership, local government officials, and industry leaders about the future of DOE’s Environmental Management program.  

If you have questions or are interested in sponsorship, please contact Autumn Bogus at abogus@la-inc.com.  For more information, please visit cleanupworkshop.com.

The U.S. nuclear fuel Gordian knot: The uncertain path forward

NuclearNewswire - Matt Wald | 9/1/23

In the last few weeks of 2021, when it was clear that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had put this country’s uranium fuel supply in jeopardy, nuclear energy advocates lobbied hard to attach provisions to various pieces of “must-pass” legislation—such as the National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA), the Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act—to have the government get the ball rolling on new domestic uranium fuel production capacity. 

Four times they thought they had succeeded, that Congress was going to allocate enough money to start the United States on the road to a secure supply of reactor fuel, including the higher-enriched fuel needed for advanced reactors. Four times they were wrong. People close to the legislative process point to missteps in a variety of places, including the White House, but they also say that they were persistently stymied by the then chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Frank Pallone (D., N.J.), who saw the attempts to attach fuel provisions to other legislation as an encroachment on the turf of his committee. 

After essentially losing a year on the long road to nuclear fuel security, prospects are looking better—but still far from certain. Just before the Senate went home for its “State work period” (better known as summer vacation), it voted 93–3 to attach the Nuclear Fuel Security Act to the 2023 defense authorization. It is doubtful, however, that this will untie the fuel supply Gordian knot. The House did not attach provisions to its version of the bill; moreover, this is an authorization to spend money, but it is not an appropriation. Even if the House agreed, there would be no money to spend. 

That battle will be fought later this fall when both houses return from summer recess. 

Various proposals have been floated to “reprogram” previously appropriated yet unspent funds. An obvious target is the $6 billion Civil Nuclear Credit Program, intended to protect current-generation reactors from shutdown when wholesale electricity prices were extremely low. Candidates for the money include Palisades (now shut but a candidate for reopening) and Diablo Canyon (which had its death sentence lifted last fall by the state of California). The size of the credit was based on how low wholesale prices fell, and it is now clear that some of that money will not be spent for its intended purpose. 

It is not clear if Congress will produce a budget this fall or resort to a “continuing resolution” (CR), essentially cut-and-pasting last year’s budget instead of writing a new one. 

“A CR would be disaster for fuel,” said one lobbyist who follows the negotiations closely. That is because last year Congress provided $100 million for HALEU infrastructure in the Ukraine supplemental. Technically, it wasn’t in the budget, so it wouldn’t be covered by a CR. (The Biden administration is said to be preparing a supplemental aid package for Ukraine that may include funds for nuclear fuel, but it is not yet official.) 

At this point, there is movement in Congress, but the prospects for a long-term fix are extremely uncertain. One year ago, Congress allocated just $700 million, in the Inflation Reduction Act, to help establish a supply chain—only about 20 percent of what is needed to make higher-enriched fuel and not enough to address the shortfall in the lower-enriched variety. 

But nuclear fuel has not risen to the top of the priority list for Congress. Distracted by everything from the debt ceiling to whether the Department of Defense should accommodate service members who seek abortions, Congress clearly has other problems on its mind.

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Check out ECA's latest report! 

DISPOSAL DRIVES CLEANUP: RE-ENERGIZING MOMENTUM FOR DISPOSAL SOLUTIONS FOR RADIOACTIVE WASTE

This report calls on the Department of Energy to launch the initiative to develop the actual waste disposition approaches. The Department could potentially save hundreds of billions of dollars in cleanup costs by using its available tools and implementing the report’s recommendations.

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