The U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations approved legislation Sept. 12 that would increase funding for the U.S. Department of Energy's research programs and that attempts to solve the yearslong stalemate over how to permanently dispose of the country's spent commercial nuclear fuel.
The committee voted 31-0 to advance its fiscal year 2020 energy and water spending bill. The legislation would provide $48.87 billion for energy and water development and related agencies, $4.23 billion above the fiscal year 2019 enacted level and $10.81 billion above the Trump administration's budget request.
Within that total, $39.03 billion would go to the DOE, up by $3.35 billion from the prior fiscal year and $7.53 billion more than the White House's proposal. The Senate proposal also exceeds the U.S. House of Representatives' $37.1 billion request for the DOE in fiscal year 2020.
The DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy would get $2.8 billion, rising by $421 million year over year and surpassing President Donald Trump's request by $2.46 billion. Fossil energy research and development would total $800 million, $60 million above the prior-year enacted total and $238 million higher than the president's request.
Nuclear energy research and development would also rise substantially, totaling $1.52 billion. That is $191.7 million higher than fiscal year 2019 and $693.8 million more than the administration sought. The Senate bill would include $300 million to start a demonstration program for advanced reactors, $315 million for fuel cycle research and development, $50 million for enrichment and shipping, and $145 million for advanced fuels. The Senate bill would also set aside $249 million for reactor concepts research, development and demonstration.
Additionally, the legislation would protect funding for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, known as ARPA-E, a program the Trump administration has repeatedly called to defund. The Senate bill proposes record funding of $428 million for ARPA-E, slightly higher than the House's request of $425 million and above the $366 million appropriated for 2019.
The Senate's energy and water spending bill will now head to the Senate floor for consideration. But time is short to pass appropriations bills before the Oct. 1 start of the 2020 fiscal year, raising the chances that Congress will need to pass a short-term continuing resolution or another stop-gap measure to fund the federal government at the start of the new fiscal year.
Nuclear waste provisions
The Senate appropriations committee's bill contains legislation from Energy Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would support a pilot program to allow consolidated nuclear waste storage at interim sites and permit the DOE to store nuclear waste at private facilities that are licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
But the proposal would not allow licensing to resume on the stalled Yucca Mountain long-term waste repository in Nevada.
The proposal is "completely separate from Yucca," Feinstein spokesperson Adam Russell said. But authorizing interim storage facilities to consolidate nuclear waste is a "necessary step we'd need to take even if a [permanent] repository was in place."
"At least we moved ahead with the interim storage proposal that's been included in our bill for several years," Alexander told reporters after the committee's Sept. 12 markup. "Right now it's tough to get Yucca Mountain on the floor because of the opposition of Democratic senators from Nevada. We'll just have to wait and see."
The Trump administration has pushed to revive the Yucca Mountain project, but support for the waste site is mixed in the U.S. Congress, with Nevada lawmakers particularly opposed to the project. In the prior Congress spanning 2017-2018, the House passed a bill that would have paved the way for licensing to restart on Yucca Mountain, but the measure never came up for a Senate vote.
A Senate draft bill similar to the House legislation was introduced in 2019 but also has not reached the Senate floor thus far.
