The Senate bill provides $290.6 M for the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (OFES), compared to $296.2 M provided in the House bill and $290.6 M requested by the President. For inertial confinement fusion, within DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) the Senate bill provides only $314 M, compared to $541 M provided by the House and $460 M requested by the President.

With respect to the OFES allocation, the Senate report says it has reduced ITER funding by $28 M (from the requested level of $55.5 M) and directs that same amount to be spent on domestic fusion research "to ensure full operations on the DIII-D, Alcator C-Mod and NSTX fusion research facilities."

With respect to the NNSA inertial confinement fusion program, the Senate report says that it has provided no funds for continued NIF construction (hence the $146 M reduction from the President's request). However, within the $314 M appropriated, the Senate report calls for a considerably different programmatic distribution than requested. For example, the Senate bill restores funding for inertial fusion energy efforts that Congress has supported in the past and for which the NNSA has once again not requested funding and directs that more funds than requested be provided for the Omega laser program at the University of Rochester and the Z-machine at Sandia National Laboratories. The Senate also directs that more money be spent on petawatt lasers than requested.

The Senate also adopted an amendment offered by Senator Domenici (R-NM) calling for a review of the U. S. fusion program by the General Accountability Office (GAO) and stating, "The GAO shall consider any other magnetic fusion confinement system as a possible fusion demonstration facility that will follow ITER and, given the NNSA investment in the physics of inertial confinement fusion, the GAO shall evaluate the opportunities for the Office of Science to develop the appropriate science and technology to leverage the NNSA investments as an alternative to the tokamak concept."