A three-bill package that will pay for the cleanup at the Hanford site and research activity at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is headed to President Donald Trump’s desk. 

The U.S. Senate voted 82-15 to approve H.R. 6938 on Jan. 15. The bills are similar to the set of appropriations bills for the 2025 fiscal year budget approved in the U.S. House the prior week.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, one of the lead authors of the bill, lauded the passage, citing Hanford and PNNL as among the big winners. 

“This legislation invests in important research at our universities and national Laboratories, including Pacific Northwest National Lab, and supports new efforts like the Northwest Regional Commission that will deliver a real boost to rural communities across our region,” Murray said in a statement. “After the Trump administration once again tried to shortchange Hanford in its budget request, I negotiated a funding bill that delivers record funding to accelerate the cleanup effort sitewide.” 

The bill’s passage gets Congress closer to avoiding another potential government shutdown. The current continuing resolution passed by Congress in mid-November after the longest federal government shutdown in history runs out on Jan. 30. Several other funding measures are still working their way through the House and Senate. 

H.R. 6938 calls for $3.2 billion, a $200 million increase from the previous budget, to pay for the ongoing legacy cleanup at the Hanford site. In a statement, Gov. Bob Ferguson called the budget for Hanford "a positive step" in the federal government's obligation to clean up the site.

However, the state Department of Ecology said it still falls far short of the annual appropriation necessary to keep up with legally-required milestones for the cleanup. Ecology estimates a compliant budget of $6.15 billion was needed for Fiscal Year 2026, and $6.76 billion is needed for 2027.

PNNL will benefit from several elements of the bills, including:  

• $8.4 billion for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which funds research at PNNL and several other national labs.  
• $65 million for PNNL’s Environmental and Molecular Sciences Laboratory.  
• $96 million for PNNL’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement user facility.  
• $2.37 billion and $2.9 billion for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which both have substantial research portfolios at PNNL. 

U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Washington, was among the legislation’s supporters in the House, noting that it includes $10.4 billion to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, including for the continued operation of the Lower Snake River dams.   

“As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, my immediate focus in the new year is passing our remaining government funding legislation and avoiding another costly shutdown," Newhouse said in a statement. “This package gets us closer to that goal, with half of the bills having now been passed by the House.”