The Senate Appropriations Committee advanced a $35.4 billion spending bill that covers the Energy Department, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies Thursday without any obvious partisan riders.
Both Democrats and Republicans held back potentially controversial amendments that would have endangered passage by the full Senate. Instead, senators will offer such measures on the floor, where they will need 60 votes to clear procedural thresholds.
Notably absent were funds for completing the licensing review for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada and any measures to block implementation of the forthcoming Waters of the United States rule.
The funding level for fiscal 2016, which matches the House-passed measure, is $1.2 billion above the current budget and $668 million below President Obama’s request. It passed by a 26-4 vote, with Democratic Sens. Jon Tester of Montana, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Patty Murray of Washington and Chris Murphy of Connecticut dissenting.
“This appropriations bill is forward-looking in its approach to responsibly providing for our national nuclear security, waterways management, flood control and energy security despite limited resources,” said Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss.
The bill includes $6 billion for nuclear waste management, $167 million above current funding, and $10.5 billion on Energy Department programs — $270 million above current levels, but $1.1 billion below Obama’s request. Fossil fuel research would get $610 million, a $39 million increase, and nuclear energy research would get $950 million, a $116 million increase. Those spending bumps were offset by cuts to clean energy research.
The bill called for spending $5.1 billion on the Energy Department’s Office of Science, which conducts basic research. That’s the most ever allocated to Energy Department’s basic research efforts, according to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee.
Alexander said the bill “puts us one step closer to doubling basic energy research,” a goal he wants to reach. Alexander has suggested ending the wind production tax credit, a 2.3-cent per kilowatt-hour subsidy awarded to wind power producers, as a way to pay for it. But Democrats and some Republicans from breezy states support the incentive.
“[Alexander is] concerned about the subsidies for wind, but those subsidies aren’t in our bill,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Energy and Water Subcommittee, said at the mark-up. “Instead, funding for wind technology development … is cut by 60 percent. I can’t think of a faster way to end the need for subsidies for wind power than doing the technology development work to make it more efficient and competitive.”
The spending bill also includes a pilot program supported by Alexander and Feinstein to permit nuclear waste stored at interim sites and would allow the Energy Department to store waste at private facilities being built in Texas and New Mexico. Some Republicans, though, view the measure coolly because they worry it would reduce interest in assessing whether Yucca could permanently store nuclear waste.
Democrats held similar concerns, though they want a local government to apply for a permanent site rather than force it on Yucca. They also feared the Energy Department would be liable for damages at private facilities.
Republicans want the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to complete its review of Yucca, the planned permanent waste dump, but the agency says it doesn’t have enough money. Previous House GOP budgets have included money to finish the evaluation, but the Senate, with its Democratic majority, blocked it.
While Republicans are now in the majority in the upper chamber, with 54 members they can’t run roughshod over Democrats. And Republican Dean Heller of Nevada opposes it. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also has vowed to block Yucca.
On Waters of the United States, one policy rider prohibits the Environmental Protection Agency from changing the definition of “fill material” and “discharge of fill material,” which supporters believe would safeguard certain agricultural, homebuilding and mining activities from further regulation.
But the bill doesn’t include any measures that would prevent the EPA from enforcing the rule, as Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., withdrew an amendment to do that when Alexander, Feinstein and others said it was best left for the floor. While the House spending bill includes such a provision, the White House has threatened to veto the overall bill, singling out that rider as one of the reasons for doing so.
“This is a big problem … and it’s something we have to address,” Hoeven said at the mark-up.
The forthcoming rule, which the EPA is expected to release Friday, has come under fire from Republicans and centrist Democrats who say their constituents fear it will expand EPA authority to over a number of agricultural practices, homebuilding and energy development.
The EPA and its supporters, however, contend the rule will clarify which bodies of water are subject to regulation. They say the rule would remove hurdles and questions about development.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misrepresented the state that Jack Reed represents. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.
