The just-announced budget caps deal provides $2.5 billion more in base defense spending than the 2020 budget the House has already approved, and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would need a 25% share of the extra funding to reach the White House’s preferred civilian nuclear-weapons budget.
To get the money, the semi-autonomous Department of Energy agency will either have to compete with the entire Department of Defense, get the money from elsewhere within DoE as the Trump administration proposed in March, or make do with less funding that it wanted.
Announced Monday, the spending agreement could be voted on by the House as soon as Thursday. The deal would permit $666.5 billion in base defense spending for 2020. In appropriations bills passed in June, the House provided about $664 billion in base defense spending, of which the NNSA, Department of Environmental Management (EM) and other DoE defense programs represent a roughly $22.5 billion share.
In its 2020 Energy and Water budget bill, the House rejected the administration’s proposal to increase funding for the NNSA while decreasing funding for EM and other DoE programs. The lower chamber approved $15.9 billion for NNSA — some $600 million below the request — while EM got roughly $6 billion, or about $470 million above the request.
The Senate could vote on the caps deal next week, after the House leaves Washington for its annual August recess. The Senate Appropriations Committee has yet to produce any 2020 spending bills, and if it waits until after the upper chamber’s scheduled August recess to do so, it would have under three weeks to write, debate and pass the bills, then iron out any differences with House appropriators.