ALEXANDRIA, VA. — During an address this week to the National Cleanup Workshop here, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) touched upon everything from Congress averting a government shutdown to the need for a new disposal site for nuclear debris at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee.
“We are either going to pass a budget or get a year-long CR [continuing resolution] … I don’t know where that is going to land,” Fleischmann, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, told the annual gathering, sponsored by the Energy Communities Alliance.
Fleischmann welcomes a deal struck earlier this month to avert a federal shutdown. “A government shutdown is a disaster and there is no appetite for that.” But the Tennessee Republican wants to see passage of a full budget for fiscal 2022. Budget needs change from year-to-year both for families and the government, so lawmakers can only recycle last year’s numbers for so long, Fleischmann said.
Much headway has been made on fiscal matters in Washington in the past two weeks, Fleischmann said. He praised agreement on the National Defense Authorization Act this week and expressed optimism that Congress will work out plans to increase the federal debt limit and prevent a default before Dec. 15.
While nuclear cleanup funding is not as “glamorous” as the national labs, the work of the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management is vital to other agency nuclear missions, Fleischmann said.
“We need a new disposal cell to be built at Oak Ridge,” Fleischmann said. The state of Tennessee is working with DOE on plans for the Environmental Management Disposal Facility project, which would replace Oak Ridge’s current low-level landfill that will be full in a few years, the lawmaker said. “We are literally a few weeks away from getting something inked so we can move forward.”
The congressman, whose district includes Oak Ridge and the Y-12 National Security Complex, also praised progress on the Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12.
On other topics, the Joe Biden administration has “robust” support for nuclear power but there is no quick fix ahead for high-level nuclear waste disposal, Fleischmann said. On the Yucca Mountain spent-fuel storage project in Nevada, “[Donald] Trump killed it. Biden kept it dead.”
