The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge is pictured above in June 2012. (Photo courtesy NNSA)
Note: This story was last updated at 4:20 p.m.
Funding for the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge would be up about 25 percent under the budget request submitted to Congress in May, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration.
The total funding for Y-12 would be $1.64 billion, the NNSA said. That’s an increase of 25.4 percent over fiscal year 2016.
The budget request for fiscal year 2018, which starts October 1, was submitted by President Donald Trump to Congress on Tuesday, May 23. The NNSA request of $13.9 billion would increase funding by 7.8 percent compared to fiscal year 2017, Administrator Frank G. Klotz said during a teleconference with reporters on May 23.
Trump’s budget request has not yet been approved by Congress, where there has been bipartisan opposition, particularly to the proposed cuts. In Oak Ridge, sites and programs that could be cut include Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which would have a funding reduction of $206 million over two years, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, or EERE.
But Y-12, a National Nuclear Security Administration site, could benefit if the president’s budget request were approved by Congress. A House spending bill introduced last week for federal energy and water departments appears to include proposed spending levels for the NNSA, a semi-autonomous agency within DOE, that are similar to what the Trump administration has proposed. [Read more…]
