The proposed House of Representatives’ fiscal 2019 spending plan for Hanford Site would provide more money than the Department of Energy requested but would not match current spending levels, according to information from the staff of Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.).
On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee sent its marked-up energy bill to the full House.
The budget proposal would increase funding for the Hanford Office of River Protection by $41.5 million. That would raise the total to $1.48 billion, which is short of the current spending of $1.56 billion. The office is responsible for management and treatment of Hanford’s 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste.
The Richland Operations Office, responsible for all other cleanup and operating the Hanford Site, would receive $205 million more under the House spending proposal than requested by the administration. The total would be $863 million, matching current spending if security and safeguards are excluded. House security and safeguard totals were not available for Hanford on Wednesday.
The spending bill report said $15 million is included in the plan for the second of three phases of the Hanford Test Bed Initiative. The pilot program so far has grouted 3 gallons of low-activity radioactive tank waste at Perma-Fix Environmental Solutions. The next phase of the program would grout 2,000 gallons of waste and the remaining phase would grout at least 100,000 gallons. Proponents of grouting some tank waste rather than vitrifying the material at the Waste Treatment Plant it could cut costs by billions of dollars.
