"The American Nuclear Society welcomes the release of President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2022 budget request. As the scientific and professional organization for over 10,000 nuclear engineers and technologists in the U.S., we applaud the administration’s support for federal investments in advanced nuclear energy and tax credit mechanisms for our existing fleet of carbon-free nuclear power plants.

Congress voted to approve appropriations for fiscal year 2021 that includes $1.5 billion for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy.

The U.S. Senate voted last week to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S.4049, the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Debate on the legislation could take all this week, with hundreds of amendments already filed to the bill.

Nuclear to see more time in the limelight. Here are seven hearings this week to keep on your radar:

• Tuesday, March 3, 9:30 am EST: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to examine the President's FY 2021 budget request for the Department of Energy. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette will provide testimony. To watch the hearing click here.

President Trump’s budget request for fiscal year 2021, released on February 10, allots $35.4 billion to the Department of Energy. Nearly $1.2 billion of that goes to the Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE).

The final FY 2020 appropriations were signed into law on December 20, 2019, nine months after that budget was first proposed, and it could be several months before final appropriations for FY 2021 are enacted. Those enacted appropriations could bear little resemblance to the proposed budget. It bears noting that while the FY 2020 budget request for DOE-NE was $824 million, more than $1.493 billion—an increase of just over 87 percent—was ultimately enacted.

This morning the White House released its FY2021 budget request. We don't expect federal agencies to issue their detailed budget requests—known as Congressional Justifications, or "CJ's"—for another week or two. In the meantime, here's what we know now: