Jay Inslee: “This is a motion brought to assure that nothing happens in the conference report that could jeopardize completion of our…”

“This is a motion brought to assure that nothing happens in the conference report that could jeopardize completion of our statutorily-mandated mission for the Department of Energy to complete the cleanup of about 100 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste now at various sites in the United States. In my State, for instance, there are 53 million gallons at Hanford, at Savannah River, there are several million gallons, in New York State, in Idaho, and we need to complete this cleanup. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons the concern has been expressed that in the conference committee there could be an attempt to essentially give unfettered discretion to the Department of Energy to reclassify this waste, essentially give it a different name, rather than to complete with the certain rigor and completion of the type of cleanup that is now mandated in Federal law. We think it is very important to clean up this waste rather than just to rename this waste.”