Wrap: House vote sought on compensation bill; EPA updates PRAS advice; Cole to lead House Appropriations and more
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) has called on House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to set a vote on S.3853, a bill to extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Reauthorization Act, before it expires June 7.
The Senate has done its job, Bush said, passing the bill by more than a two-thirds margin on Feb. 29. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has been a Senate sponsor of renewing and expanding the act, and criticized congressional failure to attach the legislation to critical budget and policy bills.
President Joe Biden has promised to sign the legislation. Bush appeared April 5 at a press conference near the Coldwater Creek Superfund site, according to a press release. “To this day, World War II is still killing us in St. Louis,” Bush said in a video of the gathering.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week published updated interim guidance on getting rid of what national media outlets often refer to as “forever chemicals,” many of which were first used for uranium separation during the Manhattan Project era.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidance covers disposal and destruction of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) not contained in consumer goods. The Department of Energy has said it is cooperating with EPA to get a fuller understanding of health risks posed by PFAS, commonly found in fire-fighting foam and a slew of flame-resistant and non-stick household goods.
EPA said Thursday it will take comments on the guidance for 180 days. Underground injection, landfills and “thermal treatment,” which can include incineration, are three common methods currently used to control PFAS, EPA said in a fact sheet. The new document updates the interim guidance EPA put out in 2020. The agency will update its 2024 guidance again in three years, as required by the National Defense Authorization Act.
Republicans on Wednesday officially selected Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) to serve as the new chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.
Cole, a member of the panel’s defense subcommittee, succeeds Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), who announced her plans in March to step down as chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
Cole, who ran unopposed for the Appropriations chairmanship, has been a strong proponent of increased defense spending during his time on the Appropriations defense subcommittee.
Richard Allen, a research scientist who spent 30 years at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state, has died at age 88.
According to his obituary, at the time of his retirement in 1995, Allen was leading a DOE research project into technologies for disposing of old plutonium-contaminated gloveboxes. He also led a reactor aging program at the laboratory for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Allen died April 7 at his home in Utah.
