Staff Reports
WC Monitor
10/23/2015
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee member Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is considering whether to block the confirmation of Victoria Baecher Wassmer to be under secretary of energy for management and performance, largely because of what on Tuesday he said were broken commitments by Energy Department leadership to commit adequate funding for decontamination and decommissioning work at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio. “He is leaving that possibility open,” a congressional staffer said of a potential blockage in an email after the hearing. Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant D&D contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth in August announced that an anticipated $81 million budget shortfall to fund the project in fiscal 2016 would force up to 500 layoffs. Congress on Oct. 1 passed a continuing resolution that funds the federal government at fiscal 2015 levels through Dec. 11 and includes an anomaly to give DOE the flexibility through its Uranium Enrichment D&D Fund to prevent Portsmouth D&D layoffs.
Currently the Federal Aviation Administration’s assistant administrator for finance and management, Wassmer told Portman and his committee during a confirmation hearing on Tuesday that she would be “happy to work with” Portman on funding Portsmouth if she’s confirmed, but the senator questioned her intentions for the site. “I would say to that question that you would be happy to work with me, that when I supported [Energy] Secretary [Ernest] Moniz in his confirmation, he made that same commitment,” Portman responded. “When I supported Deputy [Energy] Secretary [Elizabeth] Sherwood-Randall, I got that commitment. When I supported [DOE] Assistant Secretary [for Environmental Management Monica] Regalbuto, I got the same commitment. They all made assurances during their confirmation hearings that they would work with me, and they haven’t. We need to see that follow through. Frankly, I am not much in the mood to do other confirmations until I get real commitments on this.”
The staffer said Portman “wasn’t happy” with Wassmer’s and DOE assistant secretary for nuclear energy nominee John Kotek’s answers about funding for Portsmouth D&D and the American Centrifuge Program, respectively. American Centrifuge contractor Centrus in September confirmed that DOE would no longer provide funding for the Piketon piece of the program, and officials have said all ACP operations will be limited to development activities at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee at a cost of $35 million per year. Centrus employs about 300 technical and other staff in Piketon. ACP is an advanced uranium enrichment facility intended to produce low-enriched uranium. The staffer added that Portman plans to privately meet with Wassmer and Kotek soon, and he expects them to “provide more specifics on how they plan to work with Ohio.”
Portman said that Congress seemingly has to step in every year to provide “last-minute help” for D&D work at Portsmouth. “That’s not the way to run a railroad, and it’s certainly not the way to run people’s lives,” he said. Wassmer said if confirmed, she would be committed to ensuring long-term cleanup at Portsmouth. Portman cited a recent conversation he had with Moniz, when the secretary told him he would advocate for Portsmouth funding beyond the CR. “If the secretary has shared that with you, and if I am confirmed, I will support his direction and guidance,” Wassmer responded.
Senate ENR minority spokesperson Rosemarie Calabro Tully said she doesn’t expect the committee to hold a confirmation vote for the nominees who testified during the hearing until next week or two weeks from now at the earliest. “Senators have one business day to submit questions in writing to the nominees,” she said in an email. “The nominees then are given time to respond. A vote out of the committee will not be scheduled until the responses to the questions are received and distributed to the committee’s members.”
DOE referred a request for comment on the possibility of the blockage of Wassmer’s confirmation to the White House, which did not respond to a separate request for comment.
Cantwell Questions Murray and Wassmer on EM, Hanford Issues
Senate ENR Ranking Member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Wassmer, Kotek and Cherry Murray, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be director of DOE’s Office of Science, were well-qualified and urged that they be confirmed. She questioned Murray about her experience on the Congressional Commission to Review the Effectiveness of the National Energy Laboratories. Some forms of defense waste do not yet have viable disposition paths and the Office of Science could help with associated technical issues, Cantwell said. “Science really is the underpinning of every technology,” Murray said. “One of the things that the commission noted is that with the enormous amount of resources that we’re spending on environmental cleanup, more science is definitely necessary.”
Cantwell asked Wassmer how she would ensure the timely completion of construction on the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant. Work at the plant needs to move forward on a path that is certain, Cantwell said. “We do have leaky tanks and we need to get them cleaned up,” Cantwell said. Through the years the senator has seen ideas proposed at Hanford, only to have them declared unworkable after large amounts of money have been spent on them, Cantwell said. Wassmer said she has had high level briefings on the Waste Treatment Plant and, if confirmed, will receive additional briefings to learn the specifics of DOE’s proposed phased approach to plant startup. DOE is proposing that a new facility be built outside the Waste Treatment Plant to prepare some waste to be sent directly to the Low Activity Waste Facility. That would allow some treatment to start before the Pretreatment Facility is ready to operate, separating tank waste into low activity and high level radioactive waste streams for separate treatment at the plant. Construction has stopped at the Pretreatment Facility and part of the High Level Waste Facility to address technical issues related to high level waste.
