In her first official visit to an Energy Department cleanup site since being sworn in last week, Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management Anne Marie White toured the Paducah Site in Kentucky on Thursday.
She was part of a delegation including Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
After touring the site, Perry and McConnell answered a few questions from local reporters. In a video clip of the press conference, Perry said he had hoped to visit Paducah with McConnell earlier, but the timing worked out well because White was now able to attend.
“Had we come a month ago that would not be the case,” Perry said. The energy secretary expressed his confidence in White’s ability to effectively tackle environmental management issues at Paducah. White did not speak during the brief press session.
White was sworn in March 30 after being confirmed in a Senate voice vote on March 22. A longtime nuclear cleanup consultant, she is the first Senate-confirmed “EM-1” at the Department of Energy since Monica Regalbuto departed when President Donald Trump took office in January 2017.
More than a half century of uranium enrichment plant operations produced hazardous wastes, radioactive wastes, and various types of mixed wastes at Paducah. It’s estimated cleanup won’t be finished until post-2040.
“We know this [cleanup] is going to be going on for a long time,” McConnell said, adding that employment should stay between 1,100 and 1,300 people in the foreseeable future. CH2M-led Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership in 2017 secured a contract worth up to $1.5 billion over 10 years for deactivation and remediation at Paducah. The other venture members are Fluor and BWX Technologies.
Under the fiscal 2019 budget request, the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant cleanup in Kentucky would be funded at $270 million, $3 million less than the fiscal 2018 omnibus package signed into law by Trump on March 23.
