Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said despite proposed budget cuts, there should be no slowdown in remediation at Department of Energy nuclear cleanup sites.
“Through doing things smarter, there won’t be any slowdown” in nuclear cleanup at Cold War and Manhattan Project sites, Wright told Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) during a Congressional hearing Wednesday.
The Donald Trump administration plans to run DOE nuclear remediation “like a business,” Wright told Simpson during a hearing of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development subcommittee. There is “no intention to slow down the cleanups at Idaho” National Laboratory and the other sites, Wright said.
In its topline or so-called “skinny” budget outline for fiscal 2026 rolled out last week, the White House said it would keep the Hanford Site in Washington state flat-funded at about $3 billion but the other sites within the Office of Environmental Management could share in a $389 million cut spread across the sites. The Environmental Management fiscal 2025 budget was roughly $8.2 billion.
