Budget request for SRS positive

We are glad to see that the Obama administration's proposed budget will continue the missions at the Savannah River Site, including the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility. Clearly the administration, as do our South Carolina senators and representatives in Washington, understands the value and importance of SRS to our nation.

There has been a move to end the MOX program. Earlier this month, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., introduced a bill that would have reduced funding for the nuclear weapons programs by $100 billion, essentially ending MOX. The bill had 35 co-sponsors, but South Carolina legislators were not among them.

We don't expect Markey's bill to go any further. The MOX facility, scheduled to become operational in 2016, would turn surplus weapons-grade plutonium into reactor fuel to be used in commercial nuclear power plants. Its mission is part of agreements with Russia that the United States must carry out.

The $27.2 billion budget request is slightly less than the current SRS funding, but, in addition to continuing MOX, it supports the Liquid Tank Waste management program, which includes the operation of the Defense Waste Processing Facility.

H-Canyon, which was ordered into minimum activity and minimum staffing status last year, will be transitioned into a modified operational state, with feed fuel for the MOX facility processed through H-Canyon.

We are glad to see the budget request included $60 million budgeted for nuclear waste research and development, $60 million for research on energy storage systems and $770 million for nuclear energy, which includes $65 million to support small modular reactors.

We hope as the budget process continues lawmakers continue to see the value in SRS and its missions.