Murray adds $50M for Hanford

WASHINGTON — The proposed Hanford budget for next year got a $50
million boost, thanks to the work of Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., on
Tuesday.

She also had planned to add money to allow work to
continue to license Yucca Mountain, Nev., as a national repository for
high-level radioactive waste. However, no amendments were allowed at the
markup of the fiscal 2011 Department of Energy proposed budget before a
Senate subcommittee Tuesday.

Instead, she plans to bring the amendment to a vote of the full Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday.

“I believe the Obama administration made a serious mistake when it
zeroed out funding for Yucca Mountain,” Murray said Tuesday at the 2011
budget markup before the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations
Subcommittee.

Hanford’s high-level radioactive waste had been expected to go to Yucca Mountain.

The
increase added to the proposed Hanford budget for fiscal 2011 brings it
to almost $2.2 billion. That is in addition to the $1.96 billion in
economic stimulus money Murray fought for that will continue to be spent
next year at Hanford on environmental cleanup work.

The
additional $50 million for Hanford cleanup in the proposed budget is in
addition to an increase in the Obama administration’s budget proposal
for Hanford for fiscal 2011. In total, the budget would include $56
million more than Hanford has in its annual budget now for environmental
cleanup linked to the past production of plutonium for the nation’s
nuclear weapons program.

Not included in the numbers are savings
in security next year and for work at the Fast Flux Test Facility, a
research rather than a weapons reactor.

“In a budget year like
what Sen. Murray is facing, this is amazing,” said Gary Petersen,
Tri-City Development Council vice president of Hanford programs. “The
fact that she did that and got a plus up for the Waste Treatment Plant
— it’s stunning work.”

Murray worked to get an increase in
spending for construction of the vitrification plant increased by $50
million when the Obama administration’s budget proposal was released in
February. She also got a $10 million increase added for work at the tank
farms, where 53 million gallons of radioactive waste are held in
underground tanks, some of them prone to leaks.

Some of that $60
million proposed increase in February was offset partially by cuts in
other Hanford programs, which the $50 million added to the proposed
Senate budget Tuesday more than offsets.

The $50 million includes
$35 million for work to clean up contaminated ground water beneath
Hanford and $15 million to speed up demolition of the Plutonium
Finishing Plant in central Hanford.

“This is a big victory for
cleanup at a time when budgets are stretched very thin,” Murray said in a
statement. “This is the kind of consistent budget we need each year to
deliver on cleanup goals, keep workers on the job and honor the
sacrifices of the Tri-Cities community.”

The proposed federal
budget appropriation level for fiscal 2011 has been set at $14 billion
less than the administration’s proposed budget in the Senate.

The
budget will go before the full Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday,
the same meeting at which Murray plans to introduce her Yucca Mountain
amendment.

“I know you’ve been a strong supporter of that program,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan, subcommittee chairman, at the Tuesday markup.

Murray
plans to propose reinstating $200 million to be used to continue DOE
work to license Yucca Mountain. That amount would be offset by an
across-the-board reduction for DOE of the same amount.

Proceeding
with Yucca Mountain is opposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but
Murray said, “I think it is very important we make the case.”

DOE
moved to withdraw its license application for Yucca Mountain from the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but the NRC regulatory board found DOE
lacked the authority to proceed. The NRC will consider the issue next.

In
March, Murray pressed Energy Secretary Steven Chu for any scientific
evidence that Yucca Mountain was unsuitable for a national repository
during a congressional hearing. She told Chu then that she was dismayed
that DOE had filed to permanently withdraw the licensing application.

– Tri-City Herald