U.S. House committee rejects Trump’s proposed deep Hanford budget cuts

The proposed U.S. House budget for the Department of Energy rejects deep Hanford cuts proposed by the Trump administration and would provide the nuclear reservation with $752 million more than the administration requested in the next fiscal year.

The proposed budget also would be an increase of $38 million over the current environmental cleanup budget for the site near Richland.

“We’re still awaiting additional details, but the baseline funding levels in the fiscal year ‘21 Energy and Water appropriations bill appear to be great for both Hanford and PNNL,” said David Reeploeg, vice president of federal programs for the Tri-City Development Council.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland is a Department of Energy laboratory and draws money from multiple areas of the DOE and other federal budgets. But a vast majority of Hanford’s funding comes through two sources — one for the DOE Hanford Office of River Protection and one for the DOE Hanford Richland Operations Office.

The proposed appropriations bill for 2021 has passed out of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee and is expected to come before the House Appropriations Committee on Monday, July 13.

“The people of central Washington understand the importance of the Hanford cleanup, and each year, I work to educate my fellow members to ensure Congress does not lose sight of this important national and regional priority,” said Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., a member of the subcommittee.

Newhouse said during a congressional hearing in February with Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette that he was “truly disappointed” in the administration’s proposal and that “cleanup levels would be profoundly impacted for the worse and a number of important and successful efforts would be halted.”

Newhouse said on Thursday that he would continue to work with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., to ensure the federal government meets its legal and moral obligation to clean up Hanford as work continues on the budget.

Usually Murray secures more money for the Hanford nuclear reservation in the proposed Senate budget than proposed by the House, putting Hanford in a strong starting position with the House proposal.

The proposed Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee has yet to propose Hanford funding for the coming fiscal year.

However, the new fiscal year starts in October, shortly before November elections, and other issues that have Congress’s attention could increase the likelihood that Hanford at least starts the fiscal year without a new budget in place.

Budget details

The House proposal would increase the budget for the Hanford Office of River protection by $29 million from current spending to $1.6 billion. The administration requested just under $1.3 billion.

The Office of River Protection is responsible for underground tanks holding 56 million gallons of radioactive waste, some of them prone to leaking, and the massive vitrification plant being built to turn the waste into a solid glass form.

The waste is left from the past production of plutonium at Hanford in Eastern Washington for the nation’s nuclear weapons program during World War II and the Cold War.

The proposed budget includes $769 million to manage the tank waste, including emptying waste from older single-shell tanks into newer double-shell tanks.

That is $6 million less than current spending, but $72 million more than proposed by the administration.

The proposed budget includes $921 million for the Richland Operations Office, which is responsible for all other environmental cleanup at Hanford.

It is $9 million more than the current budget and $365 more than proposed by the administration.

Reeploeg said Newhouse, along with Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., who also serves on the House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee do an outstanding job advocating for Hanford and PNNL priorities.

Newhouse said he also would be keeping an eye on the National Defense Authorization Act after an unsuccessful attempt to have a provision added to the Senate version of the bill to give the Department of Defense new authority over DOE budgets.

The provision would have allowed the proposed budget to have money removed from Hanford and other DOE spending if some military leaders thought it was needed for the nuclear weapons program of DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., with Murray’s support, was co-sponsor of an amendment that had the provision removed from the bill.

This story was originally published July 10, 2020 at 6:00 AM.