Jennifer Granholm, President Joe Biden’s pick for secretary of energy, vowed Wednesday that cleaning up the Hanford Site would be a top priority if she is confirmed by the Senate.
“You have my assurance that this is going to be a priority,” Granholm, the former Michigan governor, said in response to questioning from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
In her written testimony, Granholm said enhancing American security through DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration and “clean-up of our Cold War legacy” will be atop her priority list, if confirmed. Those missions will be followed by management of the agency’s 17 national laboratories and research on climate change and emission reductions.
Hanford funding is at roughly $2.58 billion in fiscal 2021, a level it only reached after Congress plussed up the $1.8 billion initially sought by the Donald Trump administration. The request was far below what is needed to fund milestones in the Tri-Party Agreement between DOE, the state of Washington and the Environmental Protection Agency, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said Wednesday at the hearing.
Cantwell and Granholm both praised the prior energy secretary, Dan Brouillette, for overseeing construction of major components of Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant during the Trump administration.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee had not scheduled a vote on Granholm’s nomination at the deadline for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. Granholm needs to clear the committee, still technically under Republican control, and the full Senate, which is split 50/50, with a Democratic tie-breaker in Vice President Kamala Harris.
Sen. Joe Machin (D-W.Va.) the incoming chair of the committee, supports Granholm’s confirmation. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), technically still the committee chair, spent much of the hearing demanding support for fossil fuels that Granholm didn’t give — and plenty of time afterward bashing the energy policies President Biden rolled out this week.
Furthermore, Barrasso told Granholm that he wants the Department of Energy to prevent government uranium from flooding the market, where it competes with stock from domestic providers, such as those in his home state. DOE had previously bartered uranium to help fund cleanup of the former enrichment facilities at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, but ceased the practice during the Trump administration. Granholm said she has not been briefed on the issue but will take a look at it.
Also at the hearing, Granholm told Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) that the Biden administration “opposes the use of Yucca Mountain for the storage of nuclear waste.”
