Hanford board gets around federal shutdown, sort of

The Hanford Advisory Board will meet in February despite the partial shutdown of the federal government.

But it will not be allowed to take action.

Federal law requires notice of the board’s meetings to be made in the Federal Register 30 days in advance of a meeting. But the federal funding lapse is limiting the work being done by the Federal Register staff.

Rather than meeting Feb. 13-14 as scheduled, the Hanford Advisory Board will meet for just one day, starting at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 13 at the Red Lion Hanford House in Richland.

It will conduct general business, such as holding a new member orientation and hearing reports from its committees, but can issue no recommendations since it can give no public notice of the meeting in the National Register.

It is the first time an advisory board meeting has been held in the Tri-Cities since June.

A September meeting was held in Seattle and the December meeting was canceled after President Trump declared the first day of its two-day meeting a national day of mourning after the death of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush.

The board provides policy-level advice and recommendations to the Department of Energy and its regulators regarding the environmental cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation to provide direction on what the public believes is important.

It includes about 31 members, each providing the point of view of a constituency such as Hanford workers, environmental or public interest groups, Hanford-area city and county governments, Northwest tribes or the general public.