Dan Newhouse

Whoever is elected to succeed U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse in Congress will need an appetite for negotiating Cold War-era nuclear waste cleanup.

Congress holds the purse strings for cleanup at the Hanford nuclear site, the 580-square-mile site that was left with radioactive and hazardous chemical waste and contamination.

Hanford cleanup

Nearly two-thirds of the plutonium produced for the U.S.’s nuclear weapons program between World War II and the Cold War came from the site that lies mostly in Benton County. It’s the nation’s largest and most complex environmental cleanup efforts.

The federal government now spends about $3.2 billion annually on the site’s cleanup, with those dollars being the backbone of the Tri-Cities economy. Congress has not passed a budget for the current fiscal year, which started this month. It’s instead operating under a continuing resolution, which expires Dec. 11.

The Trump administration proposed $400 million in cuts, and the house has proposed a $455 million cut for an annual budget of just under $2.8 billion.

In House discussions of the cut, Newhouse has said that “difficult decisions have to be made” to curb federal spending that balloon’s the nation’s debt.

Estimates on how much in annual spending is needed to complete the work varies. About $65 billion has been spent so far since the Cold War on Hanford cleanup. The last estimate in total work, which was released in 2025, put the total remaining cost at $364 billion to $589 billion.

Candidates on Hanford funding

Both Republican Amanda McKinney and Democrat John Duresky are running to represent Washington’s 4th Congressional District, which includes Hanford and spans central Washington from the U.S.-Canada border down to Oregon.

Duresky worked at the Hanford site, managing “major federal technology and contractor oversight programs” budgeted at more than $100 million.

“I understand the complexity of the mission; I’ve done oversight of the contractors, I understand the stakeholders and the requirements,” he told the Tri-City Herald in a questionnaire. “We’ve got a long way to go out there, the DOGE cuts and funding cuts didn’t help. I’ll work to get our civil service jobs back and make sure the Hanford Field Office has the resources to keep driving the cleanup mission forward.”

McKinney, a two-term Yakima County commissioner whose background is in mortgage banking, said she will advocate for “steady funding to keep the work moving safely and press federal agencies for clear goals, honest progress reports and accountability for the money spent.”

But she is also open to supporting more cost-effective ways and technological advancements that could shorten the cleanup timeline, noting the effort to “vitrify” its low-level tank waste.

“The workers carrying out the cleanup and the communities around Hanford deserve both a lasting commitment and strong oversight from Congress,” she said in her questionnaire.

Midterm general election ballots will be mailed to registered voters by Friday. Election Day is Nov. 3.