While Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) easily won re-election Tuesday, his ability to influence the money flow to the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory, and federal nuclear cleanup operations as a whole, appears to be on the decline.
Simpson took more than 60 percent of the vote in Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District to decisively defeat Democrat Aaron Swisher. But with the GOP losing the House of Representatives, Simpson in January will cede his chairmanship of the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee.
The subcommittee prepares the first House version of the appropriations package that funds DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and other agencies. These bills typically do not change drastically as they advance through the House — though that can change when it comes to merging the appropriations legislation from each chamber of Congress.
The subcommittee helped push funding for the DOE Office of Environmental Management to about $7.2 billion and kept INL funding at level at $433 million for the current fiscal year. Simpson plans to remain on the appropriations panel, according to a spokesperson.
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) is the ranking Democrat on House Appropriations and could be line to become chair. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) is ranking member on the energy and water subcommittee.
“I don’t think there is going to be any wide fluctuations in support” for funding of the Energy Department’s cleanup office, one industry source said Friday. Senior Democrats, including former and possibly future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), former Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and former Assistant Minority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), have all backed the program in the past, he said.
Clyburn’s 6th Congressional District adjoins part of the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the source noted.
The election results also mean Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) will lose his vice chairmanship on the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee. Fleischmann, who cruised to re-election over Democratic challenger Danielle Mitchell, is a vocal advocate for the nuclear cleanup complex — particularly when it comes to the Oak Ridge Site in his 3rd Congressional District. On Friday, he indicated his hopes of remaining on the Appropriations Committee. I believe this role is critical to meeting the needs of my constituents, including Oak Ridge National Lab, the Y-12 National Security Complex, and the cleanup mission.”
Another subcommittee member, Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), easily retained his seat in Washington’s 4th District in a contest with former television news anchor and Democrat Christine Brown. The district includes the Hanford Site, home to the largest and most expensive cleanup job in the DOE complex.
Elsewhere, the congressman representing New Mexico’s 2nd District, which includes DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, Rep. Steve Pearce, a Republican, lost his bid to become the state’s next governor to Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.).
The industry source expressed concern that Lujan Grisham is seen as a nuclear skeptic. If that proves true it could affect WIPP, where the state is being asked to change the way waste volume is calculated underground, and a spent nuclear reactor fuel storage site planned by New Jersey energy technology company Holtec International, he added.
In the race to replace Pearce, Republican state legislator Yvette Herrell had initially claimed victory on Tuesday. But with 100 percent of the ballots counted on Wednesday, the Ballotpedia website listed Democrat and lawyer Xochitl Torres Small as the winner by almost 3,000 votes. Herrell had not conceded at press time.
In New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District, home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, incumbent Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D) cruised to victory, with more than 63 percent of the vote over Republican and Libertarian challengers. After his victory, Lujan expressed interest in running for a leadership post in the House of Representatives.
In the U.S. Senate, two-term incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) lost her seat to Republican challenger Josh Hawley by about 6 percentage points. McCaskill has championed government protection of DOE whistleblowers.
In one state legislature race of note, Andrea Romero, former director of an advocacy group for communities around DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, was elected to the New Mexico House District 46 seat. Despite questions about her expense reimbursements while at the helm of the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities (RCLC), Romero beat the incumbent in a Democratic primary earlier this year. Without a Republican challenger in Tuesday’s general election, she easily won over a write-in effort by another Democrat.
As of last month, the financial practices of RCLC during Romero’s time there were still under investigation by the state attorney general.
