Senator Patty Murray's office issued the following:
During a Senate
appropriations subcommittee hearing, Senator Murray slammed cuts to
Washington state priorities in President Trump’s budget request
The President’s budget once again proposes cutting funding for Hanford cleanup, privatizing the Bonneville Power Association
Senator Murray: “There are several cleanup projects underway that stand to be significantly harmed by those proposed cuts”
Senator Murray:
“What I’m hearing from home is that people are really worried about the
impact of these decisions on our workers. Safety is always top
priority”
***WATCH SENATOR MURRAY’S QUESTIONING HERE***
(Washington, D.C.) – Wednesday,
U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member of the Senate
Appropriations Committee, pressed Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette on
President Trump’s proposed budget, which includes millions of dollars in
cuts to Hanford cleanup and proposes privatizing the Bonneville Power
Administration (BPA). During the hearing, Senator Murray specifically
emphasized the importance of creating a safe work environment for those
at Hanford, and asked Secretary Brouillette if the Department of Energy
(DoE) has looked into the impact that the proposed budget cuts would
have on worker safety at Hanford. Senator Murray also criticized the
administration’s proposed privatization of BPA, a move that would
significantly increase energy costs for Washingtonians.
“What I’m hearing from home is that
people are really worried about the impact of these decisions on our
workers. Safety is always top priority at this site and critically,
transparency between DoE and WA State partners is absolutely essential
on this,” Senator Murray said. “We need consistent
and adequate funding levels for all of these proposals and I will talk
to you offline on this but we are concerned about that.”
Senator Murray has consistently fought for increased funding for Hanford cleanup and against
the Trump Administration’s constant efforts to cut that funding, and
has been an ardent champion for Hanford workers, last year helping to secure more than $140,000 in sick leave back pay that they were entitled to from DOE. Senator Murray has also successfully worked against The Trump Administration’s repeated attempts to privatize BPA and sell the BPA power grid.
See Senator Murray’s full exchange with Secretary Brouillette below:
Senator Murray: Well
thank you very much Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Feinstein, I
appreciate all your work as always on this really critical committee,
thank you.
Mr. Secretary thank you for being here.
Let me start with the Hanford site in Central Washington. I was
particularly concerned to see that the budget proposed a $700 million
cut from last year’s funding level and specifically a 39% cut to the
total operations for RL. Whether it’s a cleanup of the highly
contaminated soil under the 324 Building or the risk mitigation program
that addresses highly contaminated structures that are at a risk of a
collapse, like our Purex Tunnel, there are several cleanup projects
underway that stand to be significantly harmed by those proposed cuts.
There’s a laundry list of projects to be done at RL and ORP, not to
mention the many tri-party agreement milestones that are already in
place.
So I wanted to ask you: What assessment
has DOE made on the impact that these cuts would have to the work at RL
and ORP, and most importantly to worker’s safety?
Secretary Brouillette: Thank
you, Senator I appreciate the opportunity to respond to this. The cuts
that you see in the EM program are taken from what are largely known as
carry-over funds, so it’s funds that were available from prior year
appropriations and we engage in a very robust conversation from inside
of the program to defer – safely defer – you just mentioned Building
324, safely defer projects like that. What we’ve done there is, as you
know, I’m assuming you know exactly where this place is, we were at the
point in the process of the cleanup of the EM program when we were going
to break through the floor and begin the extraction of the dirt. We
made a determination that we could safely leave that in place, leave the
floor in place, and the material that’s below it is not spreading. So
it’s a safe thing for us to defer and that allows us to focus on what we
view as the more higher priority projects. As you know, we have
milestones to meet, with the Department of Ecology on things like the DF
LAW project, so what we’ve done is we’ve refocused our efforts on
things like DF LAW, which we will complete the construction of this year
in 20, and do the hot start in 2023. So what we’ve done with that
restructuring is focus on what we feel like are the higher priority
projects. Things like removing the sludge from the K-Basins and moving
it away from the river. So that’s what you see, a re-shifting or a
shifting of the priorities within the Hanford Complex itself.
Senator Murray: What
I’m hearing from home is that people are really worried about the
impact of these decisions on our workers. Safety is always top priority
at this site and critically, transparency between DoE and WA State
partners is absolutely essential on this. We need consistent and
adequate funding levels for all of these proposals and I will talk to
you offline on this but we are concerned about that. I also wanted to
ask you about Bonneville Power Administration, BPA. As you know I’ve
worked very hard to make sure that Bonneville Power Administration
maintains its flexibility needed to provide quality, low-cost power in
the Pacific Northwest and I’m really disappointed that your budget
request doubles down on policies that we in Congress have rejected many,
many times. Maybe that’s why you proposed it, because you know that
we’re going to restore it. But, I’m going to say it again, just for the
record say again: I strongly oppose privatizing BPA’s transmission
system. It goes against current law, it will hurt our families,
particularly low and middle income families who can’t afford more
expensive power bills. This proposal really amounts to no more than a
one-time benefit to the nation’s budget. One-time benefit. And it would
permanently dismantle affordable power systems in the Northwest, and I’m
not going to let investors get richer while our people pay higher
energy proposals. So, overall it just appears to me that DoE wants to
dictate how BPA operates, so let me ask you straight-out: will you
commit to respecting BPA’s authority to set policies that support the
Northwest and its rate pares?
Secretary Brouillette: Oh
of course. Yes, I mean the law is very clear about what BPA can and
can’t do and I fully respect that. I want to assure you though, as I
told Senator Tester, unless I am directed to by Congress I can’t sell
those assets anyway so
Senator Murray: But you put them in your budget.
Secretary Brouillette: They are included in the budget, they have been included in the budget for about the last 35 or 40 years.
Senator Murray: And we reject them.
Secretary Brouillette: And
you’ve rejected them. No, I appreciate that [laughs]. It’s important to
me as we go forward, should the Congress decide to take that out and to
fully fund BPA that we begin to look, however, at the importance of our
PMAs to grid resiliency overall, as I mentioned to Senator Tester. You
know, if we are going to continue to fund BPA at the levels that we fund
it, we should ensure that they are fully integrated into the national
security grid, but we should also recognize, that overtime, certain
technologies like solar technologies and others are pushing down the
price of electricity. So I would love to work with you as we move
forward about the rate structure and what we do with BPA as we address
these issues.
Senator Murray: We
manage a lot with BPA so we’ll leave it there for right now. I did want
to, I know grid storage has been mentioned, you mentioned that the grid
storage launch pad that we’re focused on at PNNL – very important for
climate change, for a lot of things, and I appreciate the strong funding
in this budget for energy R&D and Keystone Facilities like the
Launchpad. Mr. Chairman this is how we’re going to be able to address a
lot of issues. You put it in your budget and it is a bright spot and I
thank you for that.
Secretary Brouillette: Thank you, Senator.
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