During a brief appearance at an online conference Tuesday, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm simultaneously praised and challenged the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup community.
“This industry is made up of some of the nation’s best engineers and scientists,” Granholm told the Waste Management Symposia conference, which in non-pandemic years happens in Phoenix.
At the same time, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management and its contractors need to be more inclusive, both in making its workforce “look like America” and ensuring decision-making is inclusive of tribes and other stakeholders, Granholm said.
“When we put inclusion at the center of our work” DOE can deliver the best results, Granholm said. Stakeholders should be included at every stage, she added.
The 16 nuclear sites overseen by the Environmental Management office make up the largest cleanup program in the world, Granholm said. The EM and its contractors help ensure families near facilities such as the Hanford Site in Washington state and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico enjoy cleaner air and water, and can live safely in their homes, despite decades of nuclear weapons work.
“I’m here with my hair on fire because we have urgent work to do” to save the planet, Granholm said. Many federal nuclear cleanup sites “are so close to being done,” Granholm said.
“We can all do better,” Granholm said. The presentation, which lasted less than 10 minutes and included no questions, appeared to be pre-recorded.
Granholm, a former governor of Michigan, was sworn in late last month as the 16th secretary of energy. While the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is set to vote Thursday on the nomination of David Turk to be deputy secretary of energy, the Joe Biden administration has yet to nominate individuals to head either EM or the National Nuclear Security Administration.
