Our Take: House Energy and Water Spending Bill FY2016 Passed by Appropriations Subcommittee

On April 15^th, the House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee passed a spending bill outlining funding for various energy and water-related programs, such as research and development, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers infrastructure projects and nuclear waste disposal.

The bill allocates a total of $34.5 billion to energy and water programs, which is $633 million below the President’s request for FY2016, but $1.2 billion more than the enacted level for FY 2015. We’ve highlighted some of the bill’s energy provisions below.

• Fossil Energy Research and Development (R&D) is funded at $605 million, which is $45 million more than the President’s request of $560 million, and $34 million more than the FY2015 enacted level.
• The bill also includes $936 million for Nuclear Energy programs, compared to the President’s request of $908 million, and is an increase from the FY2015 enacted level of $914 million.
• The bill funds the Department of Energy’s Title 17 Loan Guarantee program at $42 million, even though the President requested no funding for the program.
• After the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) emerged from bankruptcy last year as Centrus Energy, it was retained as a subcontractor on a uranium enrichment project it formerly owned. Congress appropriated $97 million to the project in FY2015 and the President’s budget requested slightly increasing its funding to $100 million in FY2016. The House bill grants the request by offering $50 million in direct funding and an authorization for DOE to reprogram $50 million from the bill’s General Provisions account for Domestic Uranium Enrichment, thereby funding Centrus.

Below is a comparison of Congress’ spending on the Nuclear and Fossil Energy R&D programs compared to DOE’s requests in the last two appropriations cycles.