ALEXANDRIA, Va. — U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) on Sept. 12 said he would not seek to succeed Lamar Alexander in the Senate.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Fleischmann said during a presentation at the U.S. Energy Department’s National Cleanup Workshop. “I’m staying in the House. I’m not running for the Senate.”
After Alexander (R-Tenn.) announced in December he would not seek re-election in 2020, Fleischmann was one of many GOP names floated as a possible successor. In July, President Donald Trump tweeted his support for Tennessee native Bill Hagerty, the administration’s ambassador to Japan, to succeed Alexander. The 60-year old Hagerty resigned his ambassador post in late July and formally launched his campaign earlier this month, according to The Tennessean newspaper.
Trump’s backing makes Hagerty a strong favorite for the GOP nomination, particularly since former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has announced he will not run, Roll Call noted recently. Phil Bredesen, 75, a former governor and an unsuccessful candidate for Senate in 2018, has been regularly mentioned as the potential Democratic Party nominee for the seat.
The 79-year-old Alexander, also a former Tennessee governor, has served in the Senate since 2003. He chairs the Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, which writes the first draft of the upper chamber’s annual budget plan for the Energy Department and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, along with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Fleischmann, 56, has represented Tennessee’s 3rd Congressional District since 2011. The district includes much of the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site. As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Fleischmann has been an advocate for ample funding for the DOE mission in Tennessee, covering both the Office of Environmental Management and the National Nuclear Security Administration. He has also backed so-far unsuccessful efforts to provide funding for DOE and the NRC to resume licensing of the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
“My goal is to stay on the House Appropriations Committee,” Fleischmann told the National Cleanup Workshop.
Fleischmann is chairman of the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus, which promotes increased congressional funding for remediation of Cold War nuclear sites. He lamented the pending retirement of another member of that caucus, Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), who has championed the case for Yucca Mountain.
Shimkus announced on Aug. 13 he would not seek re-election.
“That is a big loss for us. John has really been the hero of Yucca,” Fleischmann said during a House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus presentation on Sept. 11, which Shimkus also attended.
“It’s all on you now,” Shimkus said to Fleischmann. “I have done all I can do personally in this fight,” the Illinois Republican added.
In the last Congress, Shimkus advanced through House committee and floor votes a bill that would have augmented the federal government’s ability to build the repository under Yucca Mountain. That legislation never got a Senate vote, but Shimkus this year co-sponsored a similar, same-named measure led by Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.).
Shimkus and others on Capitol Hill have regularly noted that Yucca Mountain is the legally designated end site for high-level radioactive waste and spent fuel from nuclear power reactors under the 1987 amendment to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The original legislation demanded that the Energy Department begin disposing of that waste by Jan. 31, 1998, but that has yet to happen.
Congress has now in the last three budget cycles rejected Trump administration requests for funding to revive the DOE license application for the facility at the NRC. The White House sought about $150 million for the proceeding in the upcoming fiscal 2020, but was blanked by both chambers. Instead, they recommended funding to advance consolidated interim storage of tens of thosuands of spent nuclear fuel. The House has passed its energy and water appropriations bill covering nuclear waste management, while the Senate version is waiting for a floor vote.
Unlike Shimkus and Fleischmann, Alexander has focused on centralized storage as a faster means for the Department of Energy to meet its congressional mandate on nuclear waste disposal. He has three times in the last decade co-sponsored mostly identical nuclear-waste management bills that emphasize establishing interim storage ahead of permanent disposal. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) in April introduced the latest version of the Nuclear Waste Administration Act. The bill was referred to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Murkowski chairs.
