US Federal 2005 Budget - Department of Energy - Joint ExplanatoryStatement content

[Donivan Porterfield <dporterfield@nnsa.net>]

With the passage of the US Federal 2005 Budget for the Department of Energy in the Consolidated Appropriations Act (HR 4818) there is a number of items in the Conference Report that may be of interest to some on this list.

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app05.html





Nuclear Energy



The conferees commend the State of South Carolina for recently creating one of the first new graduate nuclear engineering programs in the last 20 years. The conferees provide $1,500,000 from available funds to support this effort. The conferees also support the efforts of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas to launch a graduate nuclear engineering program and instruct the Department to support this worthy effort.



University reactor fuel assistance and support.—The conference agreement includes $24,000,000.



Research and development.—The conference agreement provides $172,000,000 for nuclear energy research and development activities. The conference agreement includes $2,500,000 for nuclear energy plant optimization (NEPO) to address the effects of aging on material in nuclear plants, $2,500,000 for the nuclear energy research initiative (NERI),



Within the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, the conferees direct $7,000,000 to the UNLV Research Foundation for continued research; of this amount, $3,000,000 is provided for collaborative studies of ‘‘deep burn’’ fuel cycles in advanced nuclear reactor designs.





Science



Molecular Medicine.—



The conferees are concerned about consequence mitigation activities and public health impacts associated with the threat of any radiological event and strongly encourage the Department to develop therapeutic radiological countermeasures to protect against exposure to the effects of ionizing radiation. The conferees are aware of the potential of inositol radiation and encourages the Department to support research of this emerging technology. The conferees recommend that the Department fund medical therapy research and other treatment options to protect the public health against radiation exposure.





National Nuclear Security Administration - Weapons Activities



Readiness in technical base and facilities.—



Finally, the conferees provide an additional $1,000,000 to the Nevada Site Office for testing and enablement of water filters to mitigate consequences of radionuclides in drinking water.



$750,000 to the UNLV ResearchFoundation to establish and certify a radioanalytical services laboratory to support emergency management training activities and actual radiological events



>From within available funds, $5,000,000 for National Energy Technology Laboratory to use the Plasma Separation Process to develop high energy isomers and isotopes for energy storage and utilization.



and $2,000,000 for development of multi-platform dosimeter Radiation Detection devices.



Nonproliferation and Verification Research and Development.—



>From within available funds, the conferees provide $2,000,000 for testing of high-pressure xenon radiation detectors at the Brookhaven National Laboratory Rad-Tech facility for portal applications.From within the funds provided, the conference recommendation includes $3,500,000 for the University of Nevada-Reno for the development of state-of-the-art chemical, biological, and nuclear detection sensors.





NON-PROLIFERATION PROGRAMS WITH RUSSIA



Off-Site Source Recovery Project.—



The conferees provide an additional $2,000,000 for the Nuclear and Other Hazardous Materials Transportation Research Project at South Carolina State University’s Transportation Center.





ENVIRONMENTAL AND OTHER DEFENSE ACTIVITIES

DEFENSE SITE ACCELERATION COMPLETION



Technology Development and Deployment.—



Within available funds, $3,000,000 is provided to continue the development of an electrochemical system utilizing ceramic ionic transport membranes for the recycling and disposal of radioactive sodium ion waste.





DEFENSE ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES



Non-Closure Environmental Activities.—



The conference agreement includes $2,000,000 for the Desert Research Institute’s Environmental Monitoring Program; $750,000 for the University of Nevada-Reno to conduct research in the areas of materials evaluation, fundamental studies on nuclear degradation mechanisms, alternate materials and design, and computational and analytical modeling;





ENVIRONMENT, SAFETY AND HEALTH (DEFENSE)



The conferees disagree with the Administration’s decision to cut funding for the Radiation Effects Research Foundation. Within available funds, the conference agreement provides $14,000,000, an increase of $10,000,000 above the request for the Foundation. This funding is critical in carrying out the scientific work, which the United States has funded since 1947, to study the health effects associated with the atomic blasts above Hiroshima and Nagasaki.



The conference agreement includes $2,000,000 for the Marshall Island program to meet the core health and environmental monitoring mission in order to reassure the communities of safe habitation and resettlement. The conference agreement also includes $5,000,000 to continue the DOE Worker Records Digitization project in Nevada. These funds are to be administered by the Nevada Site Office. The conferees provide $4,100,000 for the medical monitoring at the gaseous diffusion plants at Paducah, Kentucky, Portsmouth, Ohio, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The conferees support the continued use of helical low-dose CAT scanning for early lung cancer detection in workers with elevated risks of lung cancer. The conferees direct the Department to establish an employee field resource center in the State of New York.



Former Worker Medical Screening.—The conference agreement includes $300,000 within the Former Workers Health Program for the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant for ongoing assistance in collecting requisite medical records and completing claims forms for workers and retirees and $250,000 for the on-going beryllium screening and outreach program for workers employed at vendors in the Worcester, Massachusetts, area who supplied beryllium to the Atomic Energy Commission. The conferees support and are pleased with the Department’s efforts to expand the Voluntary Protection Program and other voluntary cooperative programs. The conference agreement includes $790,000 for the University of Washington’s Former Hanford Production Workers Medical Screening Program and to initiate medical screening for current tank farm workers consistent with the July 2004 NIOSH Health Hazard Evaluation Report.



Energy Employees Compensation Initiative.—The conferees note the transfer of responsibility for processing the Subtitle D

claims from the Department of Energy to the Department of Labor.





GENERAL PROVISIONS—DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY



Sec. 310. The conference agreement includes a provision that requires that waste characterization at WIPP be limited to determining that the waste is not ignitable, corrosive, or reactive. This confirmation will be performed using radiography or visual examination of a representative subpopulation of the waste. The language directs the Department of Energy to seek a modification to the WIPP Hazardous Waste Facility Permit to implement the provisions of this section.



Sec. 314. The conference agreement includes a provision limiting the types of waste that can be disposed of in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. None of the funds may be used to dispose of transuranic waste in excess of 20 percent plutonium by weight for the aggregate of any material category. At the Rocky Flats site, this provision includes ash residues; salt residues; wet residues; direct repackage residues; and scrub alloy as referenced in the ‘‘Final Environmental Impact Statement on Management of Certain Plutonium Residues and Scrub Alloy Stored at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site’’. This provision has been carried in previous Energy and Water Development Appropriations Acts.











Mr. Donivan Porterfield

PO  Box 1417

Los Alamos, NM  87544

dporterfield@nnsa.net



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