March 17, 2014

TENNESSEE REGULATOR PLEDGES TO WORK WITH DOE ON CLEANUP MILESTONES

By ExchangeMonitor

Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation Commissioner Robert Martineau said yesterday that he may work to renegotiate Oak Ridge cleanup milestones due to budgetary limitations facing the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. “Perhaps contrary to people’s opinions about regulatory agencies, however, we do not live in a bubble,” Martineau said at the Energy Technology and Environment Business Association annual conference in Knoxville. “We recognize and understand the fiscal constraints that we face, particularly in Washington today. We know it’s a tough budgetary landscape. We are committed to working with [DOE] in recognition of these fiscal constraints.”

House and Senate appropriators are preparing to negotiate the differences between their versions of the Fiscal Year 2012 Energy and Water Appropriations Act once the full Senate approves the measure, which is expected to come in the next week as part of a ‘minibus’ appropriations package. Tracy Mustin, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management at DOE, said in an earlier speech at the ETEBA conference that she anticipated a funding level of about $5.6 billion, about $500 million below the Administration’s request for EM work. Martineau stressed that Tennessee regulators “stand ready to work with DOE to renegotiate milestone agreements as necessary in cleanup activities in recognition of these fiscal realities.”

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