White House Releases FY 2018 Budget Request ECA Staff May 23, 2017 The White House has released its long-anticipated fiscal year 2018 budget request. The request, entitled: "A New Foundation for American Greatness," proposes significant increases to defense spending and cuts to entitlement programs (except Medicare or Social Security) and other
discretionary programs.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has stated that the budget will save $1.7 trillion on discretionary spending and balance out over the course of ten years, assuming the economy grows 3% each year--double the rate
(1.6%) the economy grew in 2016, according to Axios. The White House document, Major Savings and Reforms, states that the budget request will produce a savings of $57.3 billion in discretionary programs for
FY2018.
The budget proposes $6.7 trillion in spending on national defense over the next decade, with a $603 billion in defense spending for the coming fiscal year. The budget requests gives the National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA) an 11.4% increase in funding ($13.9 billion total) for FY2018.
Besides NNSA, all other Department of Energy (DOE) offices and programs would receive a net decrease of 18% in spending
($14.1 billion total) from current FY2017 levels. DOE's loan programs and ARPA-E would be eliminated entirely.
A high-level, detailed summary of the DOE request can be found HERE.
Of note, the budget request also calls for the restart of the nuclear waste fee--a 0.1-cent
charge on nuclear power plant owners for each kilowatt-hour of electricity generated. Previously collection of the fee by DOE was halted after the agency paused its efforts on the Yucca Mountain waste
project.
While the President's budget request is an opportunity for the Executive branch to influence the appropriations process, the responsibility of drafting and passing a budget for FY18 will ultimately fall to appropriators
in Congress. In light of the President's "skinny budget," released in March, or the formal budget request released today, many members of the President's own party have spoken out about rumored cuts to energy and research programs at
DOE.
A group of senators, lead by Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), wrote in a letter to President Trump, "Governing is about setting priorities, and the federal debt is not the result of Congress overspending on science and
energy research each year. We urge you to continue to invest in the Department of Energy's research and development programs in fiscal year 2018."
Congressman Mike Simpson (R-ID), Chair of the House
Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy & Water, has indicated that some proposed spending cuts could make it politically impossible for many GOP members to support the President's budget. Simpson said he believes the budget request will likely boost the chances of Congress passing a continuing resolution (CR) for
2018.
ECA will continue to provide additional updates and analysis on the President's budget request and the FY 2018 appropriations
process.
>>Read the full White House budget requestGovernors ask for more clean-up funding after nuclear waste site collapse The Hill May 19,
2017 Two governors are urging the Trump administration to provide more funding for nuclear waste clean-up at a former weapons manufacturing facility in
Washington.
In a letter to President Trump and other top officials, Govs. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Kate Brown (D-Ore.) said the federal government should provide enough funding to “accelerate the safe and efficient cleanup of nuclear waste at Hanford,” a nuclear waste site in southeast
Washington.
The site garnered national headlines earlier this month when the roof of a tunnel holding thousands of gallons of nuclear waste caved in. Workers were able to repair the hole in the tunnel within days, and no one was harmed in the
incident. >>Continue readingNUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Trump to nominate three to nuclear commission The Hill May 22, 2017 President Trump is planning to nominate three
commissioners to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
If confirmed by the Senate, the nominees would bring the NRC to its full slate of five commissioners and avoid the potential that the body, now with only three members, would lose a commissioner and lack a quorum in
July.
The White House said Annie Caputo and David Wright would both be new to the NRC, while Kristine Svinicki, the current chairwoman, is being tapped for a new five-year term. All three are
Republicans. >>Continue readingCrews Finish Placing Protective Cover over Tunnel at
Hanford Site DOE May 22, 2017 RICHLAND, Wash. – Workers over the weekend finished installing a protective cover over a tunnel near the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Uranium Extraction Facility (PUREX) that partially collapsed on May 9. The cover will provide additional protection while longer-term risk mitigation measures are developed and
implemented.
Using heavy equipment, crews with contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CH2M) placed the cover over the tunnel and secured it on the sides with heavy concrete blocks. Over the next few days, crews will string cables across the cover to provide additional
securing. >>Continue readingCleanup At Idaho Nuclear Landfill On Hold After Pit
Collapse Boise State Public Radio May 19, 2017 Some cleanup efforts at a nuclear waste landfill in eastern Idaho are on hold while workers try
to figure out what caused a collapse in a dig area that sent an excavator into a pit.
The excavator was digging up transuranic waste — which is waste contaminated with highly radioactive
elements.
No radiation was released during the incident last Thursday, and no one was injured, said Erik Simpson with Fluor Idaho, the contractor hired to clean up the site at the Idaho National Laboratory.
>>Continue readingSen. Lindsey Graham talks Russia, MOX Aiken Standard May 22,
2017 With Russian relations at "an all-time low" as President
Donald Trump has put it, South Carolina's senior senator thinks living up to nuclear non-proliferation agreements could help patch things up.
In a telephone interview
with the Aiken Standard, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. blamed Barack Obama and the former president's administration for delays and cost overruns with the Mixed Oxide, or MOX, Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction at the Savannah River Site in Aiken
County.
"We signed an agreement with the Russians that said we’d use MOX," Graham said. "If you change the agreement, the largest non-proliferation agreement in
the world, there's a lot at stake here." >>Continue reading Nuclear Weapons Life Cycle Fact Sheet Aiken Standard May 22, 2017 Nuclear weapons are conceptually-designed, developed, produced, and maintained in the
stockpile, and then retired and dismantled. This sequence of events is known as the nuclear weapons life
cycle. The Department of Energy (DOE) through the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and in partnership with Department of Defense (DOD) through the Nuclear Weapons Council, conducts activities in a joint nuclear weapons life cycle process for sustainment of the stockpile through refurbishment activities. The major steps, or phases, of the life cycle are described below. Currently,
the United States only utilizes phases 6 and 7 of this process, as no new nuclear weapons designs have been introduced since 1991. >>Continue reading Los Alamos lab starts treatment of 60 drums of nitrate salts bound for WIPP Associated Press May 19, 2017 LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) — Workers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico have started treating 60 drums of remediated nitrate
salts.
They plan to treat about one drum per day and have the job completed this summer.
The drums contain an incompatible combination of nitrate salt waste mixed with an organic absorbent added during repackaging to absorb liquids and neutralize the combustible characteristic of the
salts.
The drums need to be treated to be safely disposed of at southern New Mexico's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nation's only underground nuclear repository. >>Continue
readingOpinion: Complete Yucca Mountain License Application Review The Augusta Chronicle May 20, 2017 U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina introduced the
Sensible Nuclear Waste Disposition Act earlier this year. This legislation mandates that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission make a licensing decision on Yucca Mountain before the U.S. Department of Energy can consider other long-term nuclear waste disposal
options.
Clearly, now is the
time to fund the completion of the Yucca Mountain review process and let the science dictate the future of the site.
Yucca Mountain was selected in 1987 in accordance with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act as our country’s permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste. >>Continue
reading |
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| May 2017 | | 22-23 | EM SSAB Meeting, Savannah River Site |
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| May 2017 | | 24 | Senate Hearing on DOE Atomic Energy Defense Activities and Programs |
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| May 2017 | | 25 | Senate Nomination Hearing for DOE Deputy Secretary, FERC Nominees |
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| May 2017 | | 25 | House Hearing on Fiscal Year 2018 Priorities for Nuclear Forces and Atomic Energy Defense Activities |
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| June 2017 | | 7 | Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Public Hearing on the Plutonium Facility at LANL |
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| June 2017 | | 7 | House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus
Event |
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| June 2017 | | 7-8 | EM SSAB Meeting, Hanford |
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| June 2017 | | 14 | INVITATION
ONLY
ECA High-Level Waste Committee Strategic Session |
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| June 2017 | | 14 | EM SSAB Meeting, Oak Ridge Reservation |
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| August 2017 | | 8-9 | Intermountain Energy Summitt |
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| August
2017 | | 16-17 | INVITATION ONLY ECA Peer Exchange: Implementation of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park Richland, WA |
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| September 2017 | | 5-7 | Radwaste Summitt 2017 Summerlin, NV |
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| September 2017 | | 12-14 | 2017 National Cleanup
Workshop Alexandria,
VA |
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| September 2017 | | 13 | House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus
Event Washington,
DC
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Find the most recent ECA Bulletin here |
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