US Senate passes fiscal year 2006 Energy Dept budget of $25-bil
Washington (Platts)--1Jul2005
The US Senate passed a spending bill Friday giving the Energy Dept a little more than $25-bil in fiscal year 2006, a $778-mil boost over DOE's current funding level and $1.2-bil more than the Bush administration requested in the pared-down budget it unveiled in February. The bill, which passed 92-3, must now be reconciled in conference with a House of Representatives measure that gives DOE about $425-mil less funding. The House and Senate bills also differ on some key policy matters, such as developing "interim" storage sites for spent nuclear fuel stacking up at power plants because of delays in DOE's repository project in Nevada. Both Senate and House provided $577-mil for the repository, on a par with current funding level. But the Senate bill says nothing about developing interim storage, while the House measure earmarks $20-mil for it. That could be a contentious point between Rep David Hobson (Republican-Ohio) who authored the interim storage provision, and Sen Pete Domenici (Republican-New Mexico) who fought to keep it out of the Senate bill. The Senate bill also provides $368-mil for construction of a mixed-oxide plant, which Domenici says would reduce nuclear proliferation threats and solve some of DOE's environmental management problems. The House bill, though, provides no funding for this program. The Senate bill provides slightly less than the House measure for cleaning up now-defunct nuclear weapons sites, but both bills offer more than the administration's budget request. For more information about the energy bill, take a trial to Platts Electric Power Daily http://electricpowerdaily.platts.com.
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