House approves fee reclassification bill with offsets

Washington (Platts)--24Jun2004

Offsets of $576-million were attached to a waste fee reclassification bill
that the House Energy & Commerce Committee approved today as lawmakers worked
to keep the DOE repository program alive in fiscal 2005. Coupled with a
$131-million allocation in the FY-05 energy and water funding bill, the
offsets in the bill (H.R. 3981) could put waste program spending at
$707-million next fiscal year. Though the amount is below the $880-million
budget request, proponents maintained it would help to move the repository
project forward next fiscal year. The alternative--appropriators' $131-million
allocation--would shut it down, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has said.
Nineteen of the panel's 26 Democrats voted against the bill, claiming it
neither protected future payments into the Nuclear Waste Fund nor the
$15-billion already in the fund. It was undetermined at press time whether
there would be an attempt to attach H.R. 3981 to the energy funding bill on
the House floor tomorrow. Attachment would subject the H.R. 3981 provisions to
a House-Senate conference committee on the funding bill.

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