As in the past couple of years, the Administration is releasing a "skinny budget" which only lays out the President's top line budget figures and funding priorities for the upcoming fiscal year. More detailed funding request numbers for various federal agencies, including the department-wide justification for the Department of Energy (DOE), are expected to be published in the coming days.
With the budget released, appropriators in Congress now have the option to use the President's funding objectives as a guide for developing the FY2020 appropriations bills, with committee hearings on the subject expected to start later this spring.
DOE FY2020 Budget Request Highlights:
For DOE, the FY2020 budget requests $31.7 billion, an 11% decrease from the FY2019 enacted level. The request states that "the 2020 budget makes strategic investments to maintain global leadership in scientific and technological innovation and aggressively modernize the nuclear security enterprise that underpins the safety and security of Americans both at home and abroad."
The budget request states the Administration’s “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.”
For the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the budget request emphasizes the need to continue support for modernizing the nuclear deterrent and stockpile stewardship, as well as maintaining nonproliferation and counterterrorism efforts and navel nuclear propulsion. The request also prioritizes rebuilding and repurposing nuclear weapons infrastructure, including repurposing the Mixed-Oxide (MOX) facility in South
Carolina for the production of plutonium pits used in nuclear weapons. Citing the termination of the MOX project, the budget request prioritizes funding for the steps necessary to approach the disposal of surplus plutonium currently in South Carolina to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.
The budget request provides $5.5 billion to the Office of Science to sustain early-stage research, high-priority construction projects, and the operations of the national laboratories.
For environmental management efforts, the budget request includes $6.5 billion, including $128 million to accelerate deactivation and decommissioning activities.
The budget request collectively allocates $2.3 billion across the applied energy programmatic offices, including the Office of Nuclear Energy.
As with previous budget requests, the President proposed to eliminate various DOE loan guarantee programs as well as The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to "efficiently direct scarce resources as part of an integrated national energy strategy."
Read the full budget request HERE.
