TIMELINE AND FUNDING ESTABLISHED FOR HOUSE ENERGY AND WATER APPROPRIATIONS BILL
ECA Staff | 05/20/2024 In March, the White House released the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2025. Now, the House is beginning its markup of the Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee on Appropriations. Last Friday, we learned that the House allocated $59.2 billion to the Energy and Water Subcommittee, which is about $1.1 billion more than FY2024. $34.2 billion would be allocated to defense funding (EM Defense, NNSA, etc), while $24.9 billion would be allocated to non-defense funding (EM non-defense, etc). These bills provide the funding for
cleanup activities at every cleanup site in the country, NNSA mission, and other DOE missions.
This timeline demonstrates the budget process, although the timeline of events for this year have been delayed. The next step for the appropriations bill will be to send it to subcommittee markup,
scheduled for June 28. Congressman Fleischman is chair of the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations subcommittee, of which Congressman Newhouse is a member. It will be considered by the full committee on July 9. - House appropriators hope to finish the markups for all bills by the end of July.
- Afterwards, the bills must be passed by the House before they can make their way into a combined bill that must be passed by both houses. The Senate has yet to announce the allocations and mark-up schedules for its versions of the appropriations bills.
- EM conducts budget deliberations amongst the
sites, DOE Management, CFO, and OMB after receiving budget requests and site recommendations. In August, CFO/EM is scheduled to prepare a budget to send to OMB.
- According to schedule, by the September 30 deadline, if any unfinished appropriations remain, they will be combined into a continuing resolution (CR) for potential passage after the
elections.
You can learn more about energy appropriations and other budget issues on our website. In related news, the Senate Strategic Armed Forces Committee will hold a Defense Authorization
Hearing on energy issues on May 22. Testimony will be given by the DOE and DOD as a part of the review of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the FY25 appropriations. NNSA and EM are both participating in the meeting. Watch the live hearing here.
The timeline above displays the NDAA process. This hearing is important to informing the committee on what should constitute defense funding and by what processes and policies they should be authorized
for the markup process. This directly affects the amount of money federal agencies can spend for environmental cleanup of defense sites and other nuclear activities. Authorization is the amount of money agencies are authorized to spend; appropriations are the amounts of money agencies and departments are given to spend. The Senate will conduct further hearings before beginning the mark-up process. The House will begin conducting its markup later this Wednesday. In both chambers, once markup is finished the NDAA is voted out of committee, and will be sent to be heard on the floor. If one chamber passes its version of
the NDAA first, it will go to the other for consideration. A conference committee between both chambers will then be established to work out differences between the House and Senate versions. Afterwards, the bill is presented to the President to either be passed or vetoed. Typically in a Presidential election year both parties are motivated to pass the NDAA (national defense) prior to Congress recessing for elections, but many times it passes during a lame duck Congress after the November
elections. ECA staff will continue to monitor progress on FY2025 Appropriations and Authorization and release summaries
throughout.
DOE GLOWING FOLLOWING SUCCESSFUL ATLAS TEST
Railway Age | 05/16/2024 The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy on June 5 will officially unveil its nuclear waste-hauling Atlas railcar at BNSF’s 31st Street Yard, Denver, Colo. during the DOE’s 2024 National Transportation Stakeholders Forum Annual Meeting. Atlas is a 12-axle railcar designed specifically to transport large containers of
spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. It “meets the highest safety and security standards set by the Association of American Railroads (AAR),” DOE said. A final test simulated a full-scale shipment of spent nuclear fuel, carrying steel test weights instead of radioactive cargo. The railcar was loaded to its maximum weight with a 480,000-pound (240-ton) test load designed to simulate the heaviest transport container certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission. The test train departed Pueblo, Colo. on Sept. 5, 2023 and completed a four-day round-trip journey to Scoville,
Idaho, “collecting valuable data along the way,” DOE noted. The prototype consist included one Atlas, a Rail Escort Vehicle (REV), two buffer railcars, and two Union Pacific locomotives. The entire trip logged more than 1,680 miles. The four fabricated railcars (Atlas, two buffers and REV) are expected to be ready for operational use as soon as the final testing data can be analyzed and documented, and conditional approval is granted by the AAR Equipment Engineering
Committee. The overall cost of the 10-year Atlas railcar project was approximately $33 million to develop and test
the four specially designed and fabricated railcars. The REV was developed in partnership with the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program to replace its aging fleet of escort vehicles. The collaboration “helped reduce the overall cost of the Atlas project significantly,” DOE said. DOE plans to use Atlas and other railcars to support emergency responder training and informational roadshows prior to commencing shipments of spent nuclear fuel to a federal consolidated interim storage facility. The Department is currently working to site one or more federal consolidated interim storage facilities for
storing spent nuclear fuel using a consent-based siting process.
NEW MEDIA: Gone Fission Nuclear Report: UF6 - A By-Product for Industry May 20, 2024 | S4 E10 The Department of Energy’s environmental cleanup program is more than tearing down aging, contaminated buildings. In this week’s episode of the Gone Fission Nuclear Report, we’ll take a look at another
dimension of cleanup--the conversion of depleted uranium hexafluoride—or UF6--at Paducah, Kentucky, and Portsmouth, Ohio. A by-product of the conversion process is hydrofluoric acid which has wide applications in industry--from pharmaceuticals and refrigerants to aluminum, plastics, electrical components and more. Hydrofluoric acid from the conversion process is sold to industry and is a revenue generator for the government. Our guest is Zak LaFontaine, DOE Program Director for the Depleted
Uranium Hexafluoride Conversion Program at Paducah and Portsmouth
UPCOMING EVENTS: To Receive Testimony on the Department of Energy’s Atomic Energy Defense Activities and Department of Defense Nuclear Weapons Programs in Review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2025 and the Future Years Defense Program May 22, 2024 | Washington, D.C. Live Hearing Here 2024 National Cleanup Workshop September 16-18, 2024 | Crystal Gateway Marriott (Arlington, VA) More Information Here
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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.
Interactive guide for communities and governments to help navigate nuclear waste cleanup The Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) recently released the Guide to Successful Environmental Cleanup, an interactive online resource that provides frequently asked questions, case studies, and recommendations regarding nuclear waste cleanup. To assist local government officials, their communities, and federal agencies in deciphering
the complexities of the environmental cleanup process, ECA developed this guide to facilitate future successful cleanups.
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Learn More about Cleanup Sites with ECA's DOE Site Profiles ECA's new site profiles detail DOE's active Environmental Management cleanup sites and national
laboratories, highlighting their history, missions, and priorities. The profiles are a key source for media, stakeholders, and the public to learn more about DOE site activities, contractors, advisory boards, and their surrounding local governments.
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