Biden’s staff blew it last year. Reminding feds of duty to Tri-Cities is spot-on

After getting blindsided by the Biden administration last spring, Tri-City leaders are smart to make a preemptive move to ensure the community gets the federal money it deserves.

Last year, for the first time in decades, budget makers in Washington, D.C., completely omitted PILT money from the Hanford budget, shocking school and government officials throughout the Mid-Columbia.

PILT is the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program. Its purpose is to provide a way for the federal government to compensate Benton, Franklin and Grant counties for turning much of 580 square miles of land into a toxic, uninhabitable nuclear waste site.

Our region has come to rely heavily on that money, and getting it pulled from the budget unexpectedly last year was alarming. Thankfully, the payment was eventually restored thanks to the efforts of Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. and Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash.

But we don’t want to see a repeat of this situation ever again.

This year, Tri-City leaders are on their guard. There is no longer any shred of confidence that federal officials will do the right thing unless we remind them of their moral obligations to keep PILT going year after year.

That’s why community leaders are taking the initiative.

Hanford Communities – a coalition of Kennewick, Richland and Pasco, Benton and Franklin counties and the Port of Benton – recently sent a letter to the energy secretary outlining the need for PITL to continue.

School superintendents in the region also sent a letter to DOE, and the national Energy Communities Alliance is putting pressure on the White House.

It is a shame such a show of force is necessary.

PILT money should be a dependable source of revenue every year without question — and without the fight.

In 1943 the federal government seized acres of private land in Benton, Franklin and Grant counties in order to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons during World War II.

Jump ahead several decades and it became apparent that if this land had not been snatched away, these Eastern Washington counties would be collecting millions of dollars in property taxes.

To remedy that, in 1996 DOE finally agreed to compensate the counties for that loss of revenue — with a caveat. Since the federal government can make its own rules, it was able to say in the agreement that the money wasn’t an entitlement, and that payments would depend upon the availability of federal funds.

This hole has allowed the federal government to pay varying amounts over the years. And that means that there were many times money from the PILT program didn’t come close to making up for the loss of property taxes if the land had remained in private ownership.

Still, something is better than nothing. When no PILT money was set aside for Hanford last year, we described it as a “gut-punch message” that federal officials don’t care about the community’s sacrifice.

Counties are restricted to billing PILT based on the original use of land when the federal government took over — and at Hanford that’s acres of farmland.

Considering how the wine industry has thrived in the Tri-City region in recent years, imagine how much property tax money would be generated if Hanford land was full of beautiful vineyards instead of nuclear waste.

And then think of how that money could have helped contribute to infrastructure, roads, bridges, schools and other community needs. After all, those are needed to support all the federal employees who live and work here.

The majority of PILT money goes to Benton County with the lion’s share funneled to the Richland School District. Other agencies that benefit include the Prosser Hospital District and the Benton Franklin Health District.

Roads, libraries, veterans’ programs and other important services all depend on PILT.

There should be a way for the Mid-Columbia region to be able to count on the important funding source instead of having to worry about it year after year.

In a plea from the Energy Communities Alliance, Benton County Commission Chairman Shon Small wrote that PILT needs to be “predictable, sustainable and reliable for all parties involved.”

Well said.

DOE and officials at the White House need to view PILT as a federal responsibility — not an optional expense that they can trim on a whim.