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Defense spending bill includes more than $2 billion for the Savannah River Site
A bill indicating the federal government will spend more than $2 billion on the Savannah River Site now sits on President Joe Biden’s desk. The Senate and House of Representatives approved the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act this week. The National Defense Authorization Act is one component of how the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy facilities, including the Savannah River Site, receive funding. The act serves to recommend funding levels and establishes the policies as to how the funding will be spent. The funding is then allocated in spending bills. The Senate voted 87-13 to approve the bill Wednesday. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott voted in favor of the bill. Graham said he was very glad the Senate showed “overwhelming support” for the bill. “For the last 63 years Congress has passed the defense authorization bill, which authorizes pay raises for our troops, modernizes our military, and in this case, stops a lot of woke policies,” Graham said in a news release. “While no bill is perfect, the passage of the defense authorization bill makes us a stronger nation and provides certainty and predictability to our armed forces at a time of growing threats.” Scott said the bill takes steps to bolster the southern border, curb the influence of foreign adversaries like China and Russia and support the brave men and women in uniform and their families. “South Carolina serves as a vital training ground for and home to so many of the selfless Americans who serve this nation,” Scott continued in a news release. “From the Low Country to the Upstate, this bill invests in South Carolina’s military facilities and supports our critical defense industry, ensuring our state continues to serve an important role in our national security at home and abroad.” The House voted 310-118 to approve the bill Thursday. Three members of Congress representing South Carolina voted in favor of the bill: Joe Wilson, Jim Clyburn and Nancy Mace. Jeff Duncan, Ralph Norman, William Timmons and Russell Fry voted against approving the bill. The Senate and the House approved different versions of the bill earlier this year. So, a conference committee — Wilson was one of the House members — was appointed to iron out the differences between the bills. The bill recommends providing $1 billion for converting the former Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility into the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility. The Department of Energy requested $858.24 million for the conversion but the House allocated an additional $142 million when it approved a version of the bill in the summer. The conference committee kept the House recommendation. The bill recommends allocating $900.32 million for radioactive waste tank stabilization. The Savannah River Site has 43 tanks containing radioactive waste left over from the efforts to make plutonium and tritium during the Cold War. The Department of Energy requested $880.32 million. The House bill recommended an additional $20 million. In the final bill, the House recommendation was kept. The bill recommends $460.24 million for risk management operations. The Department of Energy requested $453.11 million. The House-approved bill recommended an additional $15 million. However, the conference committee only allocated an additional $7.13 million. The remainder of the requests from the Department of Energy did not change throughout the process. Those requests include: • $87.78 million for enterprise plutonium support; • $65.9 million for legacy pensions; • $62.76 million for plutonium operations; • $56.25 million for construction of Saltstone Disposal Units 10-12; • $42 million for the operations of the Savannah River National Laboratory; • $31.25 million for the Saltstone Disposal Units 8 and 9; and • $12.39 million for community and regulatory support. The bill also recommends allocating $37 million for the construction of a Tritium Finishing Facility and $34.733 million for construction of a new emergency operations center. |
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