U.S. energy secretary visits Tri-Cities for 1st time this week. Here’s what she wants to see
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will make her first visit to the Hanford nuclear reservation this week.
She’ll plans to spend three days in Washington state, with stops Thursday at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, accompanied by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and a visit to the Hanford site on Friday.
She had planned to visit Hanford in February, but canceled as it became apparent that Russian troops were preparing to invade Ukraine.
Her visit to Washington state this week also will include a visit to PNNL’s Sequim office on Wednesday and then a hydropower dam tour on Thursday morning before traveling to the Tri-Cities.
No public events have been announced.
Granholm’s visit will be primarily focused on advancing clean energy deployment.
It follows the Senate’s passage of the of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and underscores the Department of Energy’s commitment to working with President Biden to battle climate change, lower energy and transportation costs for American households, and reinvigorate domestic manufacturing, according to DOE.
Granholm, the former governor of Michigan, was sworn in as energy secretary for the Biden administration in early 2021.
She said during her January 2021 Senate confirmation hearing that environmental cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation is “urgent.”
And she committed to requesting larger environmental cleanup budgets than those of the Trump administration, under questioning by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
She told Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that Hanford cleanup is a complex project and steps need to be taken every year to address waste issues there. But progress is being made, she said.
The 580-square-mile Hanford site adjacent to Richland in Eastern Washington was used from World War II through the Cold War to produce nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.
Granholm also said during confirmation hearings that she was excited about the Grid Storage Launchpad, a $75 million facility planned at PNNL in Richland. Construction on it started this spring.
This story was originally published August 9, 2022 at 12:44 PM.