FPN05-70

Katrina Sandbags Funding Bills

September 14, 2005

Funding for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is expected to have a significant impact on appropriations bills currenly pending in the U. S. Congress. House and Senate conferees were planning to meet this week to iron out differences between appropriations each had passed earlier which would have provided Fiscal Year 2006 funding for fusion and other Deparment of Energy programs, beginning October 1, 2005. The conference has been postponed until late October at the earliest.

The postponment comes in the wake of tens of billions of dollars recently appropriated by Congress for hurricane relief and the expectation that the Administration will send another supplemental appropriations request to Congress within the next few weeks.

Congressional sources indicated that there may be no regular appropriations bills passed in this session of Congress and that there may be simply a bill continuing all programs at their Fiscal 2005 levels. Fusion funding levels for FY 2005 and those passed by the House and Senate separately for FY 2006 were reported in FPN05-43 and FPN05-57, respectively.