The West Valley Demonstration Project, a nuclear cleanup site 35 miles south of Buffalo, N.Y., again has a congressional member in the House of Representatives effective Tuesday, albeit a short timer.
Republican Joe Sempolinski was sworn in Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to represent the 23rd congressional district of New York.
“It is an honor to be the Representative of the people of the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes,” Sempolinski said in a press release. On Wednesday the new lawmaker’s office announced he will serve on the Education and Labor Committee as well as the House Budget Committee.
Sempolinski, who won a special election last month, will take over the seat last held by his old boss, Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.).
Sempolinski, a lawyer and local GOP official, was a top staffer for Reed, who resigned in May to become a lobbyist. Reed had already announced his plans not to seek re-election in November after a female lobbyist publicly accused the lawmaker of unwanted sexual advances.
But Sempolinski is only serving through early January, which marks the remainder of Reed’s unexpired term. Sempolinski was not a candidate in a special Republican primary last month won by Nicholas Langworthy. Langworthy will face off against Democrat Max Della Pia in November, the man Sempolinski beat in the special election to serve out the rest of Reed’s term.
West Valley was home to a commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant between 1966 and 1972. Congress in 1980 passed the West Valley Demonstration Project Act that made DOE responsible for cleaning up the nuclear property. The federal agency pays for 90% of the remediation cost at the site, with the remainder paid by the state of New York.
