The President's fiscal year (FY) 2020 high-level Department of Energy (DOE) budget request makes major cuts to the environmental cleanup, nuclear energy, and science; increases defense spending; and
provides funding for nuclear waste storage and to reintroduce a legacy cleanup program.
In total, the FY 2020 budget request for DOE is $31.7 billion, or almost $4 billion less than FY 2019 enacted levels. Most DOE offices saw sharp cuts to their program budgets, with the notable exception being the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Office of Environmental Management (EM) defense line items. In general, the cuts were expected after President Trump announced last October that he would be seeking a 5% budget decrease for all non-defense discretionary spending as part of an effort to “balance the budget”.
On March 11, the White House released A Budget for a Better America: Promises Kept. Taxpayers First., which outlines the Administration’s policy agenda and top-line numbers for federal agencies for the year. Soon after, the Department of Energy (DOE), published its FY 2020 Budget in Brief, which provides an overview of requested funding levels for the Department’s various program offices and initiatives. DOE is expected to release a detailed budget justification in the coming weeks.
Congressional appropriators are expected to fund the government consistent with FY 2019 enacted levels. This year’s (FY 19) Energy and Water appropriations, contained favorable funding levels for many DOE programs. With a new majority in the House in the 116th Session, the appropriations process may not be quite so smooth for the Energy and Water title, but it is still expected to be far less controversial and contentious than
other spending packages.
The following is a summary of the President’s DOE FY 2020 budget request for some of DOE's major program offices and initiatives:
Environmental Management
The budget request recommended a decrease in funding for EM for FY 2020. The administration proposed $6.5 billion for EM, a decrease of about $700 million below the amount Congress funded in FY 2019. Last year, the administration requested $6.6 billion for EM.
Several EM sites would see significant decreases in funding under the President’s proposed budget, including Hanford and Oak Ridge. At least eight sites would see increases in funding, including Savannah River Site.
In the DOE Budget in Brief, the agency explained the decrease in cleanup funding at Hanford by noting, “The decrease from the FY 2019 enacted level reflects completion of the decommissioning and demolition activities of the Plutonium Finishing Plant facilities to slab-on-grade, completion of PUREX Tunnel #2, and, and completion of transfer of sludge off the Columbia River to T Plant in the Central
Plateau.”
At Oak Ridge, the decrease in funding is “attributed to funding received in FY 2019 to address critical deferred maintenance at ORNL and to address excess facilities in the Central Campus area, ramp up Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility construction activities and to accelerate preliminary design activities of the On Site Waste Disposal Facility, and completion of major nuclear facility cleanup activities at the East Tennessee
Technology Park.”
At Savannah River Site, which would receive one of the largest cleanup funding increases under the President’s budget, the funding increase would support “initiation of the Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative Line Item Project, preparation work of older-style tanks for bulk waste removal efforts to make progress towards operational closure and in support of feed preparation for Salt Waste Processing Facility and Defense Waste
Processing Facility, and increased support for Waste Acceptance Criteria assessments needed to enable shipments to Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and Performance Assessment update of E Area.”
For Idaho National Laboratory cleanup, the budget recommended $344 million (an $88 million decrease from FY 2019 enacted levels); $195 million was recommended for Los Alamos National Laboratory (a $25 million decrease); and $398 million was recommended for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (a $5.1 million decrease).
Nevada NNSA sites would receive $60 million (a $0.6 million increase), and West Valley Demonstration Project would receive $75.2 million (a $0.2 million increase). The budget proposed $207 million for Paducah (a $1.2 million increase) and $355 million for Portsmouth (a $52 million decrease). Funding for the Gaseous Diffusion Plants would increase $1.7 million for a total of $103 million.
National Nuclear Security Administration
The NNSA saw one of its largest budgets ever in FY 2019, and the White House recommended another significant increase for FY 2020. This year, the President’s budget request included $16.5 billion for NNSA, a $1.2 billion increase above the FY 2019 enacted level. The increase in funding, according to DOE, is to pursue five goals: “(1) maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear weapons stockpile; (2) reduce global nuclear threats; (3) strengthen key science, technology and engineering
capabilities; (4) design and maintain safe and effective nuclear propulsion for the U.S. Navy; and (5) modernize the Nuclear Security infrastructure.”
The largest increase in the NNSA budget would be provided to Directed Stockpile Work ($5.4 billion total), followed by Infrastructure and Operations ($3.2 billion) and Advanced Simulation and Computing ($830 million).
In its Budget in Brief, DOE highlighted support for the Infrastructure Modernization Program (IMI), which Congress directed NNSA to create in the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2018. NNSA would use the current budget structure to focus on recapitalization and repair of its facilities,
and increased funding would go to support life extension programs, stockpile stewardship and certification capabilities, and modernization of equipment and infrastructure to align with the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review.
Continuing from last year’s budget request, the FY 2020 proposal included $220 million for the closure of the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility. In 2018, DOE announced plans to convert MOX into a facility that would produce some of the nation’s plutonium pits—a mission they would share with Los Alamos National Laboratory. The FY 2020 budget request also included $79 million to support dilute-and-dispose, an alternative
to MOX for addressing surplus plutonium currently stored at the Savannah River Site (however, the plans for the action are still unclear).
Nuclear Energy
The Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) requested $824 million in the FY 2020 budget request, a decrease in $502 million or 37.9% from FY 2019 enacted levels. FY 2020 activities to extend the life of existing reactors and support early-stage research into advanced reactor technologies, such as fast or high temperature reactors, were cut by 33.5% from FY 2019 enacted levels. Programs for fuel cycle research and development and nuclear energy enabling technologies saw 65.9% and 35.5% cuts, respectively.
However, Congress is expected to fund the NE program at levels on par with FY 2019, as nuclear energy currently has bi-partisan support.
The Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Licensing Technical Support’s line item was listed in the FY 2020 Budget in Brief, but no funding for that program has been requested or appropriated since FY 2017. According to the NE website, the program was initiated in FY 2012 as a five-year program to
“accelerate the certification, licensing, and siting of domestic advanced SMR designs and reduce economic, technical, and regulatory barriers to their deployment.” FY2017 was the last year of planned funding for the program, but activities are scheduled to be completed over the next several years as certification and licensing efforts are completed. This is particularly important for the NuScale SMR design that the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) intends to construct at the Idaho
National Laboratory by the mid-2020s as part of their Carbon Free Power Project.
Science
The Office of Science requested $5.5 billion for FY 2020, a decrease of over $1 billion or 15.8% from FY 2019 enacted levels. The Office's Basic Energy Sciences, Fusion Energy Sciences, High Energy Physics, Nuclear Physics, Workforce Development, and Science Laboratories Infrastructure programs, among others, would see cuts in funding. The Safeguards and Security program did receive an increase of $4.5 million (4.3%) in
order to support the implementation of mandated physical security modifications at laboratories throughout the DOE complex.
Legacy Management
The Office of Legacy Management (LM) manages DOE’s post-closure responsibilities at remediated DOE legacy sites (sites formally associated with the nuclear weapons complex and early atomic energy program). For FY 2020, LM’s budget request grew by nearly double the previous year’s, standing at $303 million—a $144 million or 90.7% increase from FY 2019 budget request and enacted levels. This is due to an additional $141 million in the budget request to support a joint proposal by DOE and the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to consolidate funding and budgetary planning for the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP).
FUSRAP was established in 1974 to investigate, and cleanup or control exposure to residual contamination at private sites that had supported Manhattan Engineer District or U.S. Atomic Energy Commission activities. Upon its formation in 1977, DOE assumed control of the program, and in 1997, Congress transferred responsibility for FUSRAP site characterization and remediation to USACE. The FY 2020 budget request proposes to return
budgeting authority for FUSRAP back to DOE, with USACE continuing to conduct cleanup of the program’s remaining sites on a reimbursable basis. The budget request states that “consolidating cleanup programs under a single agency will allow the U.S. Department of Energy to consider the full range of cleanup responsibilities in prioritizing work each fiscal year.”
Yucca Mountain and Interim Storage
Each budget request issued by the President (from FY 2018 to present) has contained funding for the Yucca Mountain project, which had not received appropriations in previous years under the past administration. Nevertheless, due to sustained opposition to the project by the Nevada Congressional delegation, Yucca Mountain enacted funding levels remain at zero. The President’s FY 2020 budget request signals a continued “commitment to nuclear waste management by supporting the implementation
of a robust interim storage program and restarting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing proceeding for the Yucca Mountain geologic repository.”
DOE’s FY 2020 request consists of $116 million for “Yucca Mountain and Interim Storage”—$90 million for nuclear waste disposal, and $26 million for defense nuclear waste disposal. The FY 2020’s request for defense nuclear waste fell $4 million short of the $30 million contained in both the FY 2018 and 2019 requests. In the Department’s Budget in Brief, the request for Yucca Mountain funds is not accounted for under any existing
DOE program office, suggesting that if Congress appropriates funds for Yucca Mountain, they may be used in part to stand up a new office (or revive an old office) to oversee nuclear waste disposal.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requested $38.5 million for “licensing activities related to the proposed Yucca Mountain deep geologic repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive waste,” a decrease of $9.2 million from the $47.7 million the NRC requested in FY
2019.
The $13.2 million total decreases in both DOE’s and NRC’s requests can largely be attributed to President Trump’s proposal to apply a 5% cut to non-defense discretionary spending for federal programs. In truth, if Congress were to appropriate any funds to the project, it would still be a funding increase based on current enacted levels.
ECA will continue to provide analysis of the FY 2020 budget request as DOE continues to release additional information. You can find a table below that breaks down major budget and appropriations highlights for FY 2019 and 2020.
