The Biden administration has revised its budget request for the Hanford nuclear reservation to boost funding in an unprecedented step by the White House for the site.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., had repeatedly urged in public and private conversations with the administration that the federal government fully fund environmental cleanup of the 580-square-mile site in Eastern Washington.
It 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, leaving behind millions of gallons of radioactive waste and contaminated buildings, soil, debris and groundwater.
The Biden administration this week amended its request to Congress for Hanford funding in fiscal 2023 to boost its proposed budget by about $191 million to just over $2.6 billion.
When the administration released its budget request for Hanford for the next fiscal year in late March it had proposed a cut from current spending of $172 million.
The new budget proposal is higher than current spending levels by about $18 million.
“I can’t recall a time when the president’s request for Hanford was actually more than the current funding level,” said David Reeploeg, vice president for federal programs at the Tri-City Development Council and ECA member.
“Sen. Murray has been an incredible champion for Hanford cleanup, and I highly doubt this budget amendment would have happened without her,” he told the Tri-City Herald.
Murray had pointedly questioned Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm at a hearing in May about the Biden administration’s proposal to cut spending at the nuclear reservation and also has been discussing the administration’s budget request with Shalanda Young, director of the White House-based Office of Management and Budget.
“Sen. Murray has been a key partner in making the case for additional funding for clean up efforts at the Hanford nuclear reservation,” Young said in a statement Wednesday. “I appreciate Sen. Murray’s leadership on this important issue and look forward to working with Congress to secure the funding Hanford needs.”
Murray said Wednesday that the revised budget request was a step in the right direction and that she was glad that Granholm and Young had heard her concerns about funding for the Hanford site “loud and clear.”
“But we still have a long way to go,” she said. Murray had to work within Congress last year to boost current Hanford spending after the Biden administration had proposed a cut of $104 million.
With the help of the rest of the Washington congressional delegation, she succeeded in not only restoring the cut but securing a record-high budget for Hanford for fiscal 2022. It was an increase of $128 million above the Biden administration’s request.
“We need to build off the funding I secured in the last government spending package,” and the amended Hanford budget proposal submitted this week from the White House will be critical to accomplish that, Murray said.
While the Biden administration has twice proposed reduced budgets for Hanford, the reductions have been far less than those proposed by the Trump administration, which wanted a cut of $758 million for fiscal 2021.
“I have said it before — a lot of presidents will try to trim the budget when it comes to Hanford,” Murray said. “My job is to make them remember their moral and legal obligation to his community, and that’s exactly what I’ll keep doing in the other Washington.”
The amended budget request released by the Office of Management and Budget this week is a “positive sign” but there is more work that needs to be done on the fiscal 2023 budget, Reeploeg said, agreeing with Murray’s assessment.
