First Biden DOE Budget Request Would Keep Nuclear Cleanup at Flat $7.6B

May 28, 2021
By Wayne Barber

The Joe Biden administration Friday afternoon proposed level-funding the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management at about $7.6-billion during fiscal 2022, which begins in a little more than four months.

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told Congress recently that the request for the budget year starting Oct. 1 would “sustain” cleanup of nuclear sites overseen by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). The request will allow DOE to make progress on some of the most difficult cleanups in the country, the agency said in a Friday press release.

“The EM FY 2022 budget request of $7,596,200,000 reflects the Administration’s strong commitment to continuing the cleanup mission and protecting the planet for future generations by reducing risks, maintaining broader national security priorities, and preparing for future requirements for the cleanup mission,” EM spokesman Steve Clutter said in an emailed statement.

While a detailed DOE budget was not yet available at press time, several figures were published via the Office of Management and Budget. 

After netting out a contribution for uranium enrichment cleanup, the request calls for some $6.4 billion for the defense environmental cleanup account, the largest single tranche in the EM spending package for remediating old Cold War and Manhattan Project sites. That would be about flat year-over-year, if the request becomes law.

The Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning (UED&D) Fund, meanwhile, would get $831 million, or $10 million less than fiscal 2021. The 2021 UED&D appropriation received a $219-million infusion from the United States Enrichment Corporation Fund.

The UED&D fund was set up to pay for remediation of former gaseous diffusion plants at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, the Paducah Site in Kentucky and the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, where the last of the uranium enrichment structures came down last year.

A glance at funding for some of the larger sites in the request indicates most would stay at or near their fiscal 2021 spending  

Funding for the Richland Operations Office for the Hanford Site in Washington state would stay flat at $926 million, while the request for Office of River Protection dips to $1.54 billion in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 from $1.64 billion.

Environmental spending at the Idaho National Laboratory would fall to $370 million in fiscal 2022 from $434 million in fiscal 2021. Likewise, EM spending at the Oak Ridge Site would decline more than 10% to $424 million from $475 million.

The Environmental Management request for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina would stay relatively flat at $1.53 billion. Spending on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant would rise from to $430 million from $413 million, according to the information from the Office of Management and Budget.