Employee layoffs at a Hanford site subcontractor were reportedly averted after one of the state’s U.S. senators criticized one of President Donald Trump’s cabinet members for not providing budgeted funds. But more funding cuts may be on the horizon at the nuclear cleanup site.

Democrat Patty Murray grilled Energy Secretary Chris Wright on his handling of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its various programs and initiatives on May 21. Specifically, she questioned him on how he wasn’t releasing funds as defined in a continuing resolution that set spending at the Hanford site at its 2025 fiscal year levels.

“The Hanford site is on the brink of having to lay off subcontractors and restart an entire procurement process on an important project because they are being directed now to hold off on implementing projects at FY 25 spend levels,” Murray said during a Senate committee hearing. “So, this is not efficient, and Congress requires that, and we need those fixed.”

Energy did release the funding to the subcontractor after the hearing, Murray’s staff confirmed to the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business.

The subcontractor in question, which was not identified by Murray’s office, has a role connected to the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, or ERDF, on the site.  The subcontractor’s staff were previously working under a $1 million contract for the 2024 fiscal year. But its FY 2025 contract called for $25 million as its staff ramp up their scope of work.

While the Trump administration has sought broad budget cuts across the federal government since coming into power in January, the Hanford site initially appeared to miss deeper impacts that were levied on other projects and agencies. The site has an approximately $3 billion annual budget with 13,000 people working for federal contractors and subcontractors.

But a lack of detailed spending plans as well as alleged efforts to withhold funds or block spending raised concerns that other disruptions to the cleanup effort at Hanford were on the horizon.

“This could end up being like a game of whack-a-mole,” Naomi Savin, a Murray spokeswoman, told the Journal.

Savin’s comment was prescient. The White House and DOE released more detailed spending proposals for the 2026 fiscal year after that committee hearing with Murray and Wright. Those documents allocate $34 million less to the site compared to 2024 spending levels.

However, a routine report released in April estimated it will cost between $364 billion and $589.4 billion to fully complete the cleanup at the site, $72 billion above what was last estimated in 2022. The report also indicated cleanup would take until fiscal year 2086, with long-term stewardship stretching until 2100 and beyond.

DOE’s “Budget in Brief” document explains the decrease in funding as a reflection of a variety of completed projects and reduced activities on the site.

Murray, however, blasted the Trump administration for releasing an “unacceptable” budget.

“Trump’s proposal for Hanford would force us to fall behind on the cleanup mission at a critical time, leaving key milestones unmet and raising the cost of the cleanup in the long run – not to mention increasing the safety and environmental risks for the Tri-Cities,” Murray wrote in a statement. “Writing spending bills will be challenging, but I’ll be fighting to support Hanford, the workers powering the cleanup mission, and the Tri-Cities community.”