The Bill provides $505,677,000 for the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (OFES), compared to the lower $458 million requested by the President a year ago in his FY 2014 budget submission. In his original budget submission the President had proposed to slash the domestic fusion budget to $233 million compared to the FY 2012 level of $296 million. The Omnibus bill raises the level of the domestic fusion budget to $305,677,000. Spending for the U.S. contribution to the international ITER construction project in the Bill will be limited to $200 million, compared to $225 million requested by the President.

The Bill also provides higher levels of funding for theory, simulation and high energy density laboratory physics (HEDLP) than requested by the Administration and earmarks the level of funding provided to the NSTX tokamak at Princeton and the DIII-D tokamak program at General Atomics.

The Bill goes further into detail on the domestic fusion program, restoring funding specifically for a number of areas that had been targeted by DOE for drastic cuts or elimination in the President's original budget submission. The Bill provides $22,260,000 for operations and research on the Alcator C-Mod at MIT. DOE had proposed to shut down the facility. The Bill provides $2.5 million for heavy ion fusion research. DOE had ordered the elimination of that program, largely at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. And the Bill demands that DOE provide reports on a ten-year fusion strategic plan and on ITER.

The OFES fusion program language is as follows:

Fusion Energy Sciences. - The agreement includes $305,677,000 for the domestic fusion program. Within available funds, the agreement provides $62,550,000 for the National Spherical Torus Experiment, of which $22,250,000 is for research, $16,600,000 is for operations, and $23,700,000 is for major items of equipment; $75,160,000 for DIII-D, of which $31,200,000 is for research and $43,960,000 is for operations; and $22,260,000 for operations and research at Alcator C-Mod.

Furthermore, above the budget request, the agreement provides an additional $1,700,000 for International Research, $8,500,000 for High Energy Density Laboratory Physics, $3,500,000 for Theory, $2,500,000 for Science Discovery through Advanced Computing, $5,000,000 for General Plant Projects, $3,000,000 for Enabling Research and Development, $2,500,000 for heavy ion fusion research, and $3,000,000 to support increased computational and advanced measurement capabilities for validated fusion simulation development. Not later than 180 days after enactment of this Act, the Department shall submit to the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate a plan with research goals and resource needs to implement a Fusion Simulation program.

The agreement provides $200,000,000 for the U.S. contribution to the ITER project and establishes a new congressional reprogramming control point. Not later than 12 months after enactment of this Act, the Department shall submit a ten-year strategic fusion plan to the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The ten-year plan should assume U.S. participation in ITER and assess priorities for the domestic fusion program based on three funding scenarios with the fiscal year 2014 enacted level as the funding baseline: (I) modest growth, (2) budget growth based only on a cost-of-living-adjusted fiscal year 2014 budget, and (3) flat funding. The January 2013 Nuclear Science Advisory Committee report on priorities for nuclear physics used similar funding scenarios and should serve as a model for assessing priorities for the fusion program.

With respect ITER, the Bill also states:

Provided further, That not more than $22,790,000 may be made available for U.S. cash contributions to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project until its governing Council adopts the recommendations of the Third Biennial International Organization Management Assessment Report: Provided further, That the Secretary of Energy may waive this requirement upon submission to the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate a determination that the Council is making satisfactory progress towards adoption of such recommendations.

With respect to the Inertial Confinement Fusion Program budget within DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) account, the Bill states:

Inertial Confinement Fusion Ignition and High Yield Campaign.-The agreement provides $513,957,000. Within this amount, not less than $64,000,000 shall be for Omega at the University of Rochester and not less than $329,000,000 shall be for the National Ignition Facility, of which up to $30,000,000 may be made available for the Advanced Radiographic Capability.

This compares to $401 million requested by the President in his original FY 2014 budget submission to Congress.