Workers prepare the base of a 125-foot exhaust stack for another concrete pour at the New Filter Building, part of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System at EM’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The Fiscal Year 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act includes funding for these and other infrastructure improvements at the plant.
EM received a fiscal year 2023 (FY23) budget of $8.3 billion, a 5% increase over the amount the cleanup program received for FY22.
President Joe Biden signed the Fiscal Year 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act late last month. It contains 6% more funding for EM than the amount proposed for the program in the FY23 President’s Budget Request.
All six primary EM mission areas received increased funding — Spent Nuclear Materials & Spent Nuclear Fuel, Transuranic Waste, Soil & Groundwater, Radioactive Tank Waste, Facilities Deactivation & Decommissioning, and Site Services. EM site budgets also saw an increase with the largest percentage increases going to Hanford, Idaho and Savannah River.
This appropriation enables EM to build on investments, including:
- Advancing startup and commissioning of the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste liquid waste treatment system at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
- Infrastructure improvements at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
- Continuing demolition of the Main Plant Process Building at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York.
- Shipping another 1.2 million tons of uranium mill tailings from the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project in Utah for disposal away from the Colorado River.
- Cleaning up excess facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex.
Visit EM's website for a snapshot of the program's appropriations.
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