Walden applauds nuclear waste site cleanup, stumps for waste policy bill

U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) helped commemorate the completion of the K-Basin sludge transfer during a visit this week to a nuclear waste storage facility in Washington state and advocated for proposed waste-cleanup legislation.

“I am pleased that we not only accomplished the task we charged ourselves with, but we did so under budget and ahead of schedule,” said Rep. Walden, ranking member on the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee. “Let me say that again, because we are talking about the government here: under budget and ahead of schedule.”

Rep. Walden joined U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) and U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry at the Hanford Site, a federally designated nuclear waste storage site that’s located near the Columbia River. All of the nuclear sludge leftover from the Cold War has been removed from the K-Basin there.

“The nuclear waste here in Hanford has always been a worrisome neighbor for those of us that live around the Columbia,” Rep. Walden said during an Oct. 1 employee celebration event at the Hanford Site. “The sludge has long been a threat of a potential environmental disaster and a source of pollution for Oregonians and others all throughout the Pacific Northwest.”

With a successful cleanup finished, Rep. Walden said that the waste should be stored in a secure location in Yucca Mountain, “deep in the Nevada desert where it no longer runs the risk of contaminating our water.”

Toward that goal, the congressman told event attendees that he would continue to support passage in Congress of the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019, H.R. 2699, sweeping bipartisan legislation to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. The measure is under consideration in Rep. Walden’s committee, among others, and recently passed a subcommittee markup.

Among numerous provisions, H.R. 2699 would reopen Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository of the nation’s nuclear waste, a site first designated as such in 1978 by Congress.

“It was found that the Yucca Mountain project could safely store this for one million years,” said Rep. Walden. “However, politics has held this up from happening for far too long, despite ratepayers and taxpayers paying billions of dollars towards the licensing and construction of the facility at Yucca Mountain.

“Having a permanent spot to dispose of our nuclear waste is imperative if we want to protect our environment and communities while also seizing upon the benefits that nuclear has to offer,” he said.