FY2000 Energy Water Development Appropriations bill

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title I: Department of Defense

Title II: Department of the Interior

Title III: Department of Energy

Title IV: Independent Agencies

Title V: Rescissions

Title VI: General Provisions

Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 2000 - Title I: Department of Defense - Civil - Makes appropriations to the Department of the Army and its Corps of Engineers for FY 2000 for: (1) authorized civil functions of the Department of the Army relating to rivers and harbors, flood control, beach erosion, and related purposes; (2) expenses necessary for the collection and study of information related to such purposes; (3) the prosecution of authorized water development and related projects; (4) certain flood control projects on the Mississippi River and its tributaries; (5) water development projects operation and maintenance; (6) the navigable waters and wetlands regulatory program; (7) formerly utilized sites remedial action program; and (8) general expenses.

Authorizes the use of certain funds for the collection and study of basic information on water development projects for: (1) a general reevaluation report on the flood control project, Park River, Grafton, North Dakota; and (2) the study for the flood control project, Yellowstone River at Glendive, Montana.

Authorizes the use of water development and related project funds for: (1) a decision document for a project sharing agreement for the Rochester Harbor, New York, (CSX swing bridge) project; (2) shoreline protection measures in Brevard and St. John's Counties, Florida, and Assateague Island, Maryland; (3) Everglades and South Florida ecosystem restoration; (4) a study of the economic justification and environmental acceptability of the Matagorda Ship Channel, Point Comfort Turning Basin, Texas, project (and its maintenance, if justified and acceptable); (5) development of technologies for control of zebra mussels and other aquatic nuisance species in and around public facilities; (6) commemoration of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial; (7) the Minnish Waterfront Park project, Passaic River, New Jersey; (8) the Lake St. Clair, Metro Beach, Michigan, project; and (9) construction of an emergency outlet from Devils Lake, North Dakota, to the Sheyenne River (subject to a specified condition).

Authorizes use of the Revolving Fund to renovate certain office space for use by the Corps and the General Accounting Office.

(Sec. 101) Bars application of a fully allocated funding policy to projects for which funds are identified in specified Committee reports. Directs the Secretary of the Army, acting through the Chief of Engineers, to undertake such projects using continuing contracts.

(Sec. 102) States that agreements proposed for execution by the Assistance Secretary of the Army for civil works or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shall be limited to a single agreement per project. Limits credits and reimbursements per project, and total credits and reimbursements for all applicable projects, to specified amounts in each fiscal year.

(Sec. 103) Prohibits the use of funds under this Act to revise the Missouri River Master Water Control Manual when it is made known to the pertinent Federal authority that such revision provides for an increase in the springtime water release program during the spring heavy rainfall and snow melt period in States with rivers draining into the Missouri River below the Gavins Point Dam.

(Sec. 104) Instructs the Secretary of the Army to continue funding wildlife habitat mitigation work for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, and State of South Dakota at levels previously funded through the Pick-Sloan operations and maintenance account.

Title II: Department of the Interior - Makes FY 2000 appropriations to the Department of the Interior for: (1) the Central Utah Project; (2) the Bureau of Reclamation, water and related resources (including environmental restoration at Fort Kearny, Nebraska, and the Lake Andes-Wagner-Marty II, South Dakota, demonstration program); (3) Bureau of Reclamation Loan Program Account; (4) Central Valley Project Restoration Fund; (5) California Bay-Delta Restoration (including the Walker River Basin and a comprehensive study of its issues); and (6) general administrative expenses.

(Sec. 203) Declares that funds under this title for Drought Emergency Assistance shall only be made available for the leasing of water for specified drought related purposes from willing lessors, in compliance with existing State laws and administered under State water priority allocation. Allows such leases to provide an option to purchase, subject to certain conditions.

Title III: Department of Energy - Makes appropriations to the Department of Energy (DOE) for FY 2000 for: (1) energy supply programs (including civilian research and development); (2) non-defense environmental management; (3) the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund; (4) general DOE science and research activities (including monitoring of ocean climate change indicators by the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii, the University of Missouri research reactor project, and Boston College research in high temperature superconductivity); (5) the Nuclear Waste Disposal Fund; (6) DOE administration; (7) Office of the Inspector General; (8) atomic energy defense weapons activities (earmarking certain stockpile stewardship funds for laboratory and facility capabilities in partnership with small businesses for either direct benefit to weapons activities or regional economic development); (9) defense environmental restoration and waste management (including project 00-D-400, CFA Site Operations Center, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory); (10) defense facilities closure projects; (11) defense environmental management privatization; (12) other DOE defense activities; (13) defense nuclear waste disposal; (14) the various geographical power marketing administrations of DOE (including specified costs for the hydroelectric facilities at the Falcon and Amistad Dams under the Western Area Power Administration); and (15) the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

(Sec. 301) Prohibits the use of funds under this Act to: (1) award either a management and operating contract without competitive procedures unless the Secretary of Energy (Secretary) grants a waiver on a case-by-case basis; (2) develop or implement a workforce restructuring plan for DOE employees, or to provide them with enhanced severance payments or other benefits; (3) augment specified funds made available for severance payments and other benefits and community assistance grants under specified law; (4) prepare or initiate Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for a program that has not been funded by Congress; or (5) dispose of any transuranic waste containing specified plutonium concentrations in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

(Sec. 308) Amends the Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act to provide that charges included by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) for the recovery of certain costs of fish protection shall not exceed those amounts which the BPA Administrator forecasts will be expended during the period for which such rates are established.

Title IV: Independent Agencies - Makes appropriations for FY 2000 for: (1) the Appalachian Regional Commission; (2) the Denali Commission; (3) the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board; (4) the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC); (5) the NRC Office of the Inspector General; (6) the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board; and (7) the Tennessee Valley Authority Fund.

Title V: Rescissions - Rescinds specified amounts previously appropriated for designated projects under the aegis of: (1) Department of Defense, Civil Department of the Army; and (2) Department of Energy, Southeastern Power Administration.

(Eliminates the proposed rescission of (thus continuing) appropriations for: (1) the Hackensack Meadowlands flood control project, New Jersey; and (2) the Lackawanna River project, Scranton, Pennsylvania.)

Title VI: General Provisions - Declares the sense of Congress that all equipment and products bought with funds under this Act should be American-made. Requires each Federal agency to give notice of this policy to any entity to which it provides financial assistance or contracts. Bars contracts funded under this Act from being awarded to any person determined by a court or Federal agency to have falsely labeled products as made in America.

(Sec. 603) Prohibits the use of any funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act to determine the final point of discharge for the interceptor drain for the San Luis Unit until the Secretary of the Interior and the State of California develop a plan, which shall conform to California water quality standards approved by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to minimize any detrimental effect of the San Luis drainage waters.

Directs the Secretary of the Interior to classify the costs of the Kesterson Reservoir Cleanup and the San Joaquin Valley Drainage Programs as reimbursable or nonreimbursable and collected until fully repaid pursuant to the "Cleanup Program--Alternative Repayment Plan" and the "SJVDP--Alternative Repayment Plan" described in a specified report. Makes San Luis Unit beneficiaries of drainage service or drainage studies responsible to reimburse the United States fully for any future obligations of Federal funds relating to, or providing for, such service or studies for the San Luis Unit.

(Sec. 604) Prohibits the use of any funds to restart the High Flux Beam Reactor.

(Sec. 605) Amends the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 to extend from September 30, 1998, through September 30, 2000, the NRC's authority to assess annual charges.

(Sec. 606) Extends from FY 2000 to FY 2002 the proscription against withdrawal of certain amounts from either the United States Enrichment Corporation Fund (USEC Fund), or the Working Capital Account, for specified gaseous diffusion plants.

Instructs the Secretary of the Treasury to invest in U.S. obligations such portion of the Fund as is not required to meet current withdrawals.

(Sec. 607) Redesignates the "Cascade Reservoir" as "Lake Cascade".

(Sec. 608) Amends the Pacific Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act to decrease from $2 million in 1997 dollars to $500,000 in 1997 dollars the annual cost of implementing the Northwest Power Planning Council's mandate to establish an Independent Scientific Review Panel and Scientific Peer Review Groups, and their activities. Repeals the expiration date of such mandate and activities to make them permanent.