WASHINGTON — Congress on Thursday turned up the pressure on the Energy Department to clean up the Moab uranium tailings in a bill that also authorized spending at least $20 million in new programs for Hill Air Force Base and millions of dollars on Utah's military installations.

"We got something for everything," said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, which wrote the defense authorization bill.

Although Bishop was happy with what Utah would receive in the bill, he was disappointed that more money overall had not been directed to missile defense and that the bill itself was about $2 billion short of what it should have included for the military.

The $508 billion bill sets how much money the Defense Department can spend on certain items and programs and puts new policies in place. But none of the authorized money can be spent until the president signs the defense spending bill, which is still in its infant stages.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to complete its version of the legislation next week, while the White House threatened to veto the authorization citing concerns on several provisions in the bill.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, inserted an amendment that will force the Energy Department to remove the Atlas uranium mill tailings pile, located near the banks of the Colorado River north of Moab, to Crescent Junction by Oct. 1, 2019.

"It's time to hold these guys accountable," Matheson said. "I'm being generous."

The department initially predicted the job would be done in seven to 10 years, but then department officials told Congress earlier this year it would be more like 2028. Matheson has repeatedly tried to get schedule information from the department, but it has not responded.

And once the amendment was brought up, the department did send a list of concerns to Matheson saying, "The 2028 date completion is currently set primarily for planning purposes only, based on an assumed funding profile and our understanding of the project at this very early stage."

Matheson said this and their other responses were "non-answers to me."

The tailings are a remnant of the uranium boom and Cold War, when Moab's rich uranium deposits were mined for nuclear bombs. The waste comes from a uranium mill bought by Atlas Minerals Corp. in 1962 but closed in 1984. In 1998, the company filed for bankruptcy, leaving a temporary cap on the pile. However, Colorado River water users are concerned about the tailing leaching contaminants into the river.