WHAT WOULD BE THE JOB CUTS IN EM IF THE HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS BILL PASSES? $400 Million Cut Proposed By House to EM

The House Energy and Water Appropriation Committee has proposed cutting the Office of Environmental Management (EM) cleanup program by $400 million. This would be a cut which would change the budget from 8.482 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2024 and FY2025 to $8.039 Billon in FY2026. These cuts would put the EM budget in line with the President’s requested budget of $8.092 billion. ECA is waiting on the release of the site budgets to see which sites will get the largest proposed cuts. For more information comparing the DOE Budget in FY2024 and FY2025 to the President's request, see the DOE Budget in Brief. 

Yesterday, the House Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Subcommittee released the FY2026 bill for the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Subcommittee, after a Subcommittee markup of the bill last night (July 14 - view the markup recording here.)  

Large cuts to the program call into question the impact on jobs and employment in communities that neighbor EM sites, as well as the the impact on the efficiency of cleanup at every site across the cleanup program complex.

Overall, the bill would provide $48.774 billion for the Department of Energy (DOE), a decrease of $1.396 billion from the FY2025 enacted level. Find a summary topline funding items relevant to ECA members below: 

Atomic Energy Defense Activities

Environmental & Other Defense Activities – $7,701,346,000, a decrease from $7,285,000,000 from FY2025.

  • Defense Environmental Activities – $6,521,396,000, a decrease from $7,285,000,000 in FY2025. 

  • Other Defense Activities – $1,179,950,000, a decrease from $1,107,000,000 in FY2025.

  • According to the bill summary funding supports “the continued remediation of sites contaminated by decades of Cold War-era nuclear weapons production.”

Non-Defense Environmental Cleanup – $337,700,000 a decrease from 342,000,000 in FY2025. 

National Nuclear Security Administration – $25,317,000,000, an increase of $1,182,000,000 billion from FY2025. 

  • Weapons Activities - $20,661,993,000

  • Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation – $1,993,060,000

  • Naval Reactors – $2,171,023,000

  • The bill summary specifically notes that it “provides additional funding for plutonium pit production, the Uranium Processing Facility, the Lithium Processing Facility, and the nuclear Sea-Launched Cruise Missile (SLCM-N) warhead program.”

Office of Nuclear Energy – $1,795,000,000, an increase of $110,000,000 from FY2025. 

  • The bill summary notes a focus on funding the “Advanced Nuclear Fuel Availability program, to advance production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) … the Advanced Reactors Demonstration Program and small modular reactor research, development, and deployment”

Uranium Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund (UD&D) – $844,380,000

Office of Science – $8,400,000,000, an increase of $160,000,000 from FY2025. 

  • According to the bill summary, funding “Maintains support for high performance computing, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence efforts;

  • Advances fusion energy sciences to bring fusion to the electric grid;

  • Increases operations for experimental user facilities;

  • Enhances the National Laboratories, the pipeline of foundational research, and America’s role as the global leader of scientific discovery.”

Nuclear Waste Disposal – $12,040,000

Nuclear Regulatory Commission – $971,500,000, an increase of $27,400,000 from FY2025. 

Read the Committee’s press release by clicking here.

Find the Committee bill summary by clicking here, and the full bill text by clicking here. 

ECA will provide more details on funding, in addition to updating our Federal Budget Tracker later today (July 15).  To make sure you don’t miss anything, subscribe to the ECA Update at the bottom of this newsletter. 

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