Greg Mello at the Los Alamos Study Group in Albuquerque got the word this afternoon:

Earlier this afternoon we heard, via a copyrighted publication, that the $1 billion (B) nuclear weapons infrastructure bailout was dropped from the conference agreement on the stimulus bill.

More and more organizations picked up on the issue over the past week and were sending out alerts. One way or another somebody became convinced it had to go.  The House Appropriations Committee (Chair: David Obey; Energy and Water Subcommittee Chair, Pete Visclosky) opposed it from the start.

At this time we know nothing about the $50 B increase in nuclear power and related loan guarantees.

The fate of the weird extra $6.4 B in cleanup funds, which would abruptly double the size of the program for one year, is also unknown.

Mello wasn't sure who in Congress was responsible for nixing the nuclear weapons funding, which he covered in a bulletin yesterday.

The Project on Government Oversight also had this news an hour or so ago.