Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, says the Donald Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 nuclear cleanup budget for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site is “a slap in the face to the Tri-Cities, threatening the Hanford cleanup mission and the community with this absurd budget request.”
“This proposal is completely unacceptable,” Murray said. “I’ll be doing everything I can to set this president straight on the importance of the Hanford cleanup—and if he still doesn’t get it, I’m going to make sure Congress funds it anyway. The federal government has a moral and legal obligation here—and as long as I help lead the appropriations committee, Congress is going to meet that obligation.”
Murray issued her statement April 3, shortly after Trump requested roughly $2.9 billion in funds for DOE’s most complex and costly nuclear cleanup. The request appears to cut the two Hanford Field Offices, Richland and River Protection, by a combined total of $393 million below fiscal 2026 levels.
On the Republican side, Rep. Newhouse (R-Wash.) reportedly told the Tri-Cities Business Journal through a spokesperson he intends to use his post on the House Appropriations Committee to ensure adequate Hanford funding.
New Mexico’s two Democratic Party Sens. Martin Heinrich, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, as well as Ben Ray Luján, a member of the Senate Committee on Finance and Senate Budget Committee, used the same “slap in the face” language Monday in their own statement on the fiscal 2027 budget request. They cited elimination of DOE funding for workforce partnerships and Minority-Serving Institutions.