US Senate Appropriations approves FY 2007 energy spending bill

US Senate Appropriations approves FY 2007 energy spending bill

Washington (Platts)--29Jun2006

The US Senate Appropriations Committee approved an energy spending bill
that would direct $24.7 billion to the Department of Energy, a $658 million
boost over President Bush's budget request.

The House passed a bill that approved $24.4 billion for DOE, but varies
substantially from the Senate bill, establishing what could be a difficult
negotiation between the two chambers. The bill, which totals $30.7 billion,
also funds water projects.

It launches a new approach to handling nuclear waste by directing states
to work with the federal government to find interim or temporary storage sites
for nuclear waste, while DOE attempts to get the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste
repository in Nevada up and running. The bill also would specify that its
passage would satisfy concerns over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's waste
confidence determination, which is critical to opening and relicensing nuclear
plants.

The provisions of this section, along with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act
provides "sufficient and independent grounds for further findings by the NRC
that spent nuclear fuel will be disposed of safely for purposes of licensing
civilian nuclear power reactors," the committee report said.

The bill increases the president's request for energy supply programs by
$370 million to $2.29 billion to support the president's Advance Energy
Initiative; increases the administration request for science spending by $139
million to $4.24 billion and boosts funding for Energy Policy Act initiatives
by $380 million over the president's request.

Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Pete
Domenici, Republican-New Mexico, said the committee would "show Americans what
we have done for ethanol, for cellulosic, for battery technology ... they were
not funded by the administration; we went and picked them out."

Domenici lamented the absence of funding for coal-to-liquids technology,
but said it would be a top priority in the fiscal 2008 spending bill.
"Especially in the conversion of coal we have some enormous projects awaiting
resources," Domenici said.

The committee cut $159 million from the nuclear nonproliferation account
and $59 million from the National Nuclear Security Administration.

---Daniel Whitten, daniel_whitten@platts.com

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