This bill creates the "Network of National Laboratories for Environmental Management and Stewardship" to coordinate U.S. national laboratory work that supports the Department of Energy's cleanup and long-term care of defense and non-defense nuclear waste sites. The Network will help develop, test, and deploy alternative treatment technologies and disposal methods, do technical reviews, support technology transfer, and help plan workforce training. The bill names the Savannah River National Laboratory as the Network Chair, lists Core National Laboratories that must participate, and exempts the Network from the Federal Advisory Committee Act. It also requires the Department to produce a biennial "Technology Development and Deployment Framework," to form an Interagency Advisory Group on cleanup technology, to complete a memorandum of understanding with the Office of Science, and to hold workshops and regular reports to Congress. The bill amends existing law to require corrective action plans and independent reviews for defense environmental cleanup projects when root cause analyses are done.
The bill directs more coordination among national laboratories, DOE cleanup offices (Office of Environmental Management and Office of Legacy Management), other federal agencies, contractors, and partners. If you work for or with national labs, DOE cleanup sites, tribal or state agencies, universities, or private firms that provide cleanup technology or services, this bill creates new coordination, testing, and reporting roles that could affect how technologies and contracts are evaluated and how training pipelines are developed. The bill calls for regular public reports and workshops, but does not itself change site cleanup decisions or set new cleanup standards.
The bill authorizes appropriations of $55,000,000 for fiscal year 2027 and each fiscal year thereafter to support Network activities, and $3,000,000 for fiscal year 2027 and each fiscal year thereafter to support Network operation and coordination. No publicly available information on total estimated budgetary effects, offsets, or cost estimates beyond these authorizations is in the bill text provided.
No publicly available information.
No publicly available information.