U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), a longtime supporter of cleaning up the U.S. Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state, said Monday he would not run for re-election in 2020.
“I will not seek re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives, nor election to any other office, but instead I will close the public service chapter of my life” after 30 years, the 62-year-old Walden said in a video announcement.
Walden has since 1999 represented Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District, covering the eastern portion of the state – south of the Hanford Site. He is the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee after losing his chairmanship following the November 2018 midterm elections.
Walden’s announcement prompted another GOP member of the panel, Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), to reconsider his previously announced retirement from Congress. There was chatter this week that Shimkus could be up for the top GOP spot on the committee should he stay. He lost out to Walden in 2016 for the committee chairmanship, before Democrats retook the majority in the House in the 2018 midterms.
“I have heard from fellow House members in Washington, as well as from constituents in my district and supporters throughout Illinois, who believe I can make a real difference if I get the opportunity to be a committee leader,” Shimkus said in Thursday statement. Shimkus, a vocal supporter of finally building the long-stalled Yucca Mountain radioactive repository in Nevada, said he is “weighing the pros and cons” and expects to make a decision shortly after discussing things with his family this weekend.
Shimkus has served in Congress since 1996 and had announced his retirement in August.
Walden said he decided to leave Congress although he feels confident in his ability to win another term. “I’m also optimistic that a path exists for Republicans to recapture a majority in the House, and that I could return for two more years as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.”
Walden said the time has come “pursue new challenges and opportunities.” He did not specify what that might be, although The Hill newspaper first reported Walden, who once owned radio stations, might be interested in succeeding National Association Of Broadcasters President and CEO Gordon Smith, a former U.S. senator from Oregon.
Before being elected to Congress, Walden spent a decade in the Oregon legislature, serving in its House of Representatives from 1989 to 1995 and in the state Senate from 1995 to 1997.
House Energy and Commerce has oversight authority over agencies including the Energy Department, its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Shimkus has used the committee as the launching point for legislation intended to push the Yucca Mountain repository forward, with a long list of measures including giving DOE full control of the property under which it would be built and increasing the disposal limit from 70,000 metric tons of spent fuel to 110,000 metric tons.
The Shimkus-sponsored version of the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act made it out of Energy and Commerce and the full House during the 115th Congress, but never got a vote in the Senate. Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) is lead sponsor of updated legislation in the current 116th Congress, which the House committee in September advanced for a floor vote.
