The congressional district that covers the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) will have new representation in January after incumbent Rep. Steve Pearce stepped aside to run for New Mexico governor.
Pearce is facing off against a colleague in Congress, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), to succeed term-limited governor Susana Martinez, a Republican.
Pearce, was first elected to the House of Representatives for New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District in 2002. After giving up the seat to launch what proved to be an unsuccessful Senate run in 2008, he won his old House seat back in 2010.
The GOP lawmaker has been a reliable friend to the waste disposal site. He has championed legislation to safeguard jobs at the facility and promoted full funding for its operations. The outgoing lawmaker also called for more transparency in the form of frequent public reports from DOE following two February 2014 accidents in the WIPP underground, a vehicle fire and a radiation release, that closed it for nearly three years.
Lujan Grisham, who was a Cabinet secretary for three New Mexico governors before being elected to the House in 2012, has been active on issues concerning DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico’s 1st District.
October polling by RealClear Politics gives Grisham an edge of several percentage points.
In the race to succeed Pearce, four-term Republican state Rep. Yvette Herrell faces attorney and Democrat Xochitl Torres Small, a former a field representative for Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) who is running her first campaign. A September poll by The New York Times had the race at a virtual dead heat, with the Democrat holding a 46 percent to 45 percent edge, with a large bloc of undecideds.
Whoever wins, it will be a safe bet they take up the mantle of supporter for facility that is budgeted to receive more than $400 million in fiscal 2019. The facility employs in the neighborhood of 1,100 people.
Elsewhere in New Mexico:
- Ben Ray Lujan, the five-term Democrat whose 3rd Congressional District covers the Los Alamos National Laboratory, faces Republican Jerald Steve McFall. Lujan and Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) lead the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus, which promotes environmental remediation of sites contaminated by the nation’s nuclear weapons program. A farmer who works in the ski industry, McFall’s says Congress has too many “career politicians.” An Oct. 29 poll by the FiveThirtyEight website gives Lujan a 54 percent to 37 percent lead.
- The same poll gives Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) a 48 percent to 32 percent over the GOP’s Mick Rich. Gary Johnson, a former two-term Republican New Mexico governor who went on to be the Libertarian Party’s 2012 and 2016 presidential candidate, is also in the race under the Libertarian banner. Heinrich has been active in Congress on issues concerning WIPP and Los Alamos. He has been a vocal supporter for making nuclear warhead cores known as plutonium pits solely at the LANL, rather than seeing the work moved to South Carolina. Rich, a businessman who has not held political office, said in an online biography his mother worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
With all 435 House of Representatives seats up for election, there could be changes in other districts representing key Department of Energy properties. However, many of the incumbent lawmakers seem likely to keep their seats.
In Washington state, Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) represents the 4th Congressional District, home to the massive Hanford Site. After serving in the state legislature, Newhouse was elected to Congress in 2014 and serves on the House Appropriations Committee. Newhouse is challenged by Democrat Christine Brown, a former television news reporter. The FiveThirtyEight website has forecast the incumbent Newhouse will probably get 61 percent of the vote.
On the Senate side, Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) faces a challenge from Republican Susan Hutchison, a former chair of the state GOP and a former broadcast journalist. An October poll by RealClear Politics gives Cantwell a double-digit lead.
Despite their political differences, Newhouse and Cantwell both push for maximum financial support for the massive cleanup at Hanford, jointly calling upon DOE to meet its deadlines under the Tri-Party agreement between the state, EPA and the Energy Department.
Elsewhere in areas key to the DOE nuclear complex.
A strong voice for funding of the Idaho National Laboratory, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), first elected to Congress in 1998, faces Democrat Aaron Swisher. Simpson, enjoyed a whopping 36-point lead, 59 percent to 23 percent, over Swisher in September polling by FiveThirtyEight.
Nevertheless, Simpson could lose some clout in the November elections should the Democrats wrest control of the House of Representatives from the GOP. Simpson chairs the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development subcommittee, which helps set congressional funding for the DOE site.
Three-term Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), whose 2nd Congressional District is home to the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site, faces off against Democrat Jill Schiller, former senior vice president of operations for Downtown Cincinnati Inc. The district is considered solidly Republican and RealClear Politics forecasts Wenstrup will get 55 percent of the vote.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) faces a re-election challenge from Republican businessman Jim Renacci. Brown, who has a lead of 6 percent or more in most October polls, has been in the Senate since 2006. He has sometimes joined with Ohio Republicans, including Wenstrup, to push for more money for Portsmouth remediation, even if it meant promoting the controversial practice of selling government-owned uranium to cover part of the spending.
In Kentucky, the Paducah Site is represented in the 1st Congressional District by first-term Rep. James Comer (R-Ky). It is considered a safe Republican district and one prospective Democratic opponent dropped out prior to the 2018 filing deadline.
Four-term Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R) is running for re-election after winning a Republican primary earlier this year for the 3rd-Congressional District in Tennessee. His opponent, Democrat Danielle Mitchell, is a family physician who has also headed a sports medicine institute. A FiveThirtyEight forecast predicts Fleischmann, who leads the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus and is a vocal backer of all things Oak Ridge, stands to get 63 percent of the vote.
In the 2nd Congressional District covering the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), a member of the House Armed Service Committee, is up for re-election against Democrat Sean Carrigan. Wilson has represented the district since 2001 and has typically won re-election easily. Wilson was among a group of South Carolina lawmakers who met with President Donald Trump last month in a last-ditch attempt to save the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at SRS.
In New York, Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) is seeking re-election to the 20th District, where the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) is located. Tonko has held the seat since 2009 and is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Tonko has fought for spending on SPRU, the West Valley Demonstration Project, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP).
Tonko, won his 2016 race with almost 68 percent of the vote, faces Republican Joe Vitollo in the general election.
Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) represents the West Valley Demonstration Project in the 23rd District near Buffalo, N.Y., and faces Democrat Tracy Mitrano, who supports full cleanup of West Valley. Earlier this year Reed won House passage of a West Valley Reauthorization bill. The bill sets target funding at $75 million per year and calls for a Government Accountability Office study on waste streams at West Valley. The 2018 Cook Partisan Voter Index calls it a Republican-leaning district.
