Senior U.S. Department of Energy officials and government contractor executives celebrated accomplishments at DOE cleanup sites across the country during a recent meeting with U.S. representatives as Congress considers tens of millions of dollars in reductions to funding to those efforts. 

The officials also told the U.S. House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus that innovation has the potential to shave decades of time and billions of dollars off cleanup projects going forward. 

“The idea of completing something in 2082, 2086, maybe 2092, is no longer acceptable. So, we’re changing the paradigm,” said Roger Jarrell, principal deputy assistant secretary for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, in a statement. 

The caucus has four Republicans and two Democrats and includes Washington state Reps. Republican Dan Newhouse, who is its vice chair, and Democrat Adam Smith. 

Among the accomplishments highlighted was completion of the test bed initiative at Hanford in early May. That project treated 2,000 gallons of tank waste before it was shipped for disposal to sites in Utah and Texas to be solidified in grout. 

“Implementation of this technology on an industrial scale has the potential to safely treat low-activity waste from Hanford tanks, solidify the waste in grout, and dispose of it off-site in a manner that would reduce risks to workers, the public and the environment consistent with industry standards,” said Brian Harkins, DOE’s acting manager of its Hanford site office, in a statement. 

Jarrell also told lawmakers that DOE is working to implement digital tools and artificial intelligence as part of efforts to make its programs operate “more like a business.” 

Those efforts may potentially have to be done with fewer resources. The Trump administration has proposed reducing funding for cleanup at the Hanford site by $34 million compared to 2024 funding levels. That’s despite a routine biennial report issued earlier this spring putting the cost of cleaning up Hanford at $364 billion to $589.4 billion. It also estimated it would take until fiscal year 2086, with long-term stewardship stretching until 2100. That’s tens of billions of dollars more and decades longer than was last estimated in the last report issued in 2022.