Senator Murray Applauds Completed Hanford Site Holistic Agreement

ICYMI: As Appropriations Chair, Senator Murray secures record $3 billion in Hanford funding in recent spending bills, worked with President Biden on FY25 budget requesting $3.1 billion for Hanford cleanup

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement on the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE), Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reaching a holistic agreement on their plans to manage the tank waste stored at the Hanford site.

“Today’s agreement is an important step forward for the cleanup mission at Hanford and the workers who power that mission. After years of painstaking negotiations, I am pleased that Ecology, DOE, and EPA have finally reached agreement on a path forward for the treatment of tank waste at Hanford.

“I take the federal government’s moral and legal obligation to support Hanford cleanup very seriously, and as Chair of Appropriations, I’ve worked hard to steer record federal funding to Hanford in our spending bills—and to impress upon the Biden administration at every turn that the cleanup cannot be shortchanged. I’m determined to do my part to ensure we can make as much progress as possible while putting the safety and wellbeing of Hanford workers first, so I’ll keep doing everything I can to deliver the resources we need to get it done.”

Senator Murray has worked tirelessly to support Hanford workers and ensure the federal government lives up to its cleanup obligations at Hanford throughout her time in Congress—beating back efforts by multiple administrations to underfund Hanford cleanup. Murray secured a record $3.035 billion for the Hanford cleanup—$191.4 million above the fiscal year 2023 funding level in the fiscal year 2024 government funding package she negotiated and passed through Congress as Appropriations Chair, which was signed into law on March 9^th. With significant input from Senator Murray, the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2025 requests $3.108 billion for Hanford cleanup—a $72.2 million increase above the record funding level enacted in March. In December 2023, Murray’s Beryllium Testing Fairness Act, to help Hanford workers suffering from toxic beryllium exposure, was signed into law by President Biden.

###