House appropriators delivered a sharp rebuke to the Energy Department today, scaling back or rejecting key nuclear weapons initiatives and shifting money toward clean energy and nonproliferation programs instead.

The Energy-Water Appropriations Subcommittee approved a fiscal 2008 bill providing $31.6 billion for the Energy Department, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation as well as a number of independent agencies. That represents a 4 percent increase over the $30.3 billion allocated for 2007.

The subcommittee approved the bill by voice vote without amendment, but only after a contentious debate about earmarks. The bill did not include any earmarks, but subcommittee Chairman Peter J. Visclosky, D-Ind., said member requests would be handled in conference.

The bill would boost funding for the physical sciences, energy research, nuclear nonproliferation and water programs, while maintaining level funding for environmental cleanup programs throughout the nuclear weapons complex.

The subcommittee rejected the administration’s requests for money to build a new nuclear warhead and ramp up work on the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

The bill also zeroes out funding for the Energy Department’s “Reliable Replacement Warhead,” which the department says would facilitate the retirement of older weapons and could be key to maintaining a smaller nuclear stockpile in the future.