House appropriators considering a funding hike for U.S. regulators overseeing the country's nuclear weapons stockpile this week will also get the chance to weigh in on a controversial uranium enrichment project in Ohio.

A House Appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday will hear from National Nuclear Security Administration chief Thomas D'Agostino about the agency's fiscal 2013 spending request and the need to secure nuclear material abroad and enhance research capabilities in the United States. President Obama wants to boost the agency's fiscal 2013 spending levels to $11.5 billion, up 5 percent from current spending levels.

But tucked away within NNSA's budget is a one-time expenditure of up to $150 million to develop uranium enrichment gas centrifuge technology at the $5 billion American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. The plant would be the first to use domestic gas centrifuge technology to produce low-enriched uranium for reactors and tritium for nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Enrichment Corp., which operates the DOE facility, has been warning the administration and Congress for months that the plant would be closed without federal support. Reacting to that warning, Energy Secretary Steven Chu pledged $44 million in January to support continued operations at the facility.

Critics of the project have repeatedly pointed to financial and technical problems that prevented USEC from obtaining a $2 billion federal loan guarantee to support the project.

Even so, the project has strong support among Ohio lawmakers, including House Speaker John Boehner (R). The swing state will also be crucial in the upcoming presidential election, so President Obama's support for the USEC project could be a boon to him politically.

D'Agostino has said DOE is mainly interested in securing a domestic site for producing tritium for weapons and the budgetary proposal (Greenwire, Feb. 24).

A large amount of NNSA's funding boost would support defense nuclear nonproliferation activities.

The program would receive almost $2.5 million, about 7 percent more than the current spending level, allowing the agency to secure vulnerable material around the world by curbing illicit trafficking of nuclear materials and developing new technologies to detect such activities. The money would also help NNSA dispose of surplus weapons-grade fissile materials.

The administration also requested more money for a mixed oxide fuel fabrication facility and waste solidification building at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, even though the facility has seen cost overruns in the past (Greenwire, Feb. 24).

It is still unclear how congressional appropriators will receive NNSA's request for increased funding.

Last year, members of a Senate appropriations panel scolded the agency for requesting more money during such lean fiscal times, with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, calling NNSA an "endangered species" (E&E Daily, May 5).

Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, Feb. 29, at 10 a.m. in 2362-B Rayburn.

Witnesses: D'Agostino; Donald Cook, NNSA's deputy administrator for defense programs; and Brig. Gen. Sandra Finan, NNSA's principal assistant deputy administrator for military application.