HOUSE ENERGY & WATER BILL DELAYED WHILE SENATE COUNTERPART MOVES TO MARKUP
Last week House lawmakers pulled (H.R. 8997), the House Energy and Water Appropriations Act for FInancial Year (FY) 2025, from the House floor in a move that delays a would-be vote on the bill. The bill is now suspended and there are currently no clear plans to reschedule the vote.
The suspended House version of the bill would decrease funding from FY2024 for Environmental and Other Defense Activities from $8.7 million to $8.3 million, a $339 million decrease, while increasing funding for the NNSA by almost $1.4 billion. The Bill contains no provisions to provide funding for Defense Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning (UED&D). See below for more detailed appropriations numbers:
Defense Environmental and other Defense Activities: $8,311,000,000 (-$339,000,000 from FY2024)
Defense Environmental Cleanup: $7,132,000,000 (-$153,000,000 from FY2024)
Defense UED&D: $0 (-$384,957,000 from FY2024)
Other Defense: $1,179,000,000 (+ $99,000,000 from FY2024)
National Nuclear Security Administration: $25,467,000,000 (+ $1,332,000,000 from FY2024)
Weapons Activities: $20,338,752,000 (+ $1,230,752,000 from FY2024)
Defense Nonnuclear Proliferation: $2,445,000,000 (-$136,000,000 from FY2024)
Naval Reactors: $2,118,773,000 (+$172,773,000 from FY2024)
Federal Salaries & Expenses $564,475,000 (+$64,475 from FY2024)
For the full committee report, click here.
Given the suspension of the bill, we can expect that a lawmakers will turn to a negotiations process in order to pass a Continuing Resolution (CR). In this scenario, a CR would be passed after the November elections to keep Energy and Water operations funded through the year.
In other news, the Energy and Water Bill’s Senate counterpart has been scheduled for a full committee markup this Thursday, August 1, along with a variety of other appropriations bills. The bill would headline spending at $61.5 billion. Watch the live hearing at 9:30 AM ET here.
ECA will continue to provide updates on the appropriations process in both chambers. For information on the appropriations and budget process, see our website, and be on the lookout for an updated Appropriations Tracker coming soon.