Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette used an appearance before the National Cleanup Workshop on Wednesday to both praise the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management’s accomplishments and pledge a commitment to shorter cleanup timelines during the Trump administration.
The recently sworn-in official pointed to improvements at the Hanford Site in Washington state, by far the department’s largest remediation project, as an example of progress being made by DOE’s nuclear cleanup office. Brouillette said Hanford has improved dramatically since his last visit in 2011.
“Honestly, I didn’t recognize Hanford,” Brouillette said, noting that plutonium has been fully removed from the site and 17,000 gallons of contaminated water has been treated.
Nationally, the number of major cleanup site and their footprint has decreased through efforts of the $6 billion EM program and its contractors, the deputy secretary indicated. The Office of Environmental Management now has 16 active remediation sites, with work finished at 91 other locations.
The Trump administration wants work done “sooner, safer, and at less cost to the taxpayer,” Brouillette said, without discussing specific strategies to meet these goals.
The Office of Environmental Management was formed in 1989, and will spend decades more and tens of billions of dollars to finish its mission — the latest life-cycle report for Hanford alone projected remaining cleanup expenses at nearly $108 billion and completion of most work in 2060.
Brouillette noted that the White House $6.5 billion request for the Office of Environmental Management for fiscal 2018 is one of the largest in years. The House of Representatives in July approved an energy bill that would give EM $6.4 billion for the budget year starting Oct. 1, while the Senate Appropriations Committee’s corresponding bill would provide $6.6 billion. The question is moot temporarily, as the federal government will operate through Dec. 8 under a continuing resolution that largely freezes funding at current levels.
