Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose congressional district includes the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., will keep a seat on the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee.
The same goes for Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), whose district includes the Oak Ridge Site and the Y-12 National Security Complex, in Tennessee.
The panel helps set congressional funding for the Energy Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and other agencies. In a Tuesday statement, Newhouse said the subcommittee assignment puts him in position to “provide strong funding levels for Hanford cleanup.”
Newhouse, re-elected in November to his third term in the House, will also continue to serve on the Appropriations homeland security and legislative branch subcommittees.
Following his recent re-election, Fleischmann is starting his fifth term in the House of Representatives. The Tennessee lawmaker also serves as ranking member on the Appropriations homeland security subcommittee. The House Appropriations Committee is an exclusive panel and its members typically do not serve on additional committees, Newhouse noted.
After Democrats retook the House majority in the November midterm elections, the Appropriations Committee is chaired by Rep. Nina Lowey (D-N.Y.). The ranking member is Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas).
The energy and water development subcommittee is now chaired by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), while the ranking member is Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho). The two subcommittee leaders have swapped the positions they held while the Republicans had the House majority.
