Why It Matters
The Hanford nuclear cleanup site in Washington state sits less than 1,000 feet from the Columbia River in some of its most contaminated areas — a waterway that flows through Oregon and serves as a critical resource for communities, agriculture, and fish runs across the Pacific Northwest. Proposed federal budget cuts could slow the decades-long effort to contain and process that contamination.
Any slowdown at Hanford carries real consequences for Oregon residents who depend on the Columbia River for drinking water, irrigation, and commerce. The site holds tens of millions of gallons of radioactive waste stored in aging underground tanks, and cleanup timelines are already far behind schedule.
What Happened
House Republicans are advancing a federal budget proposal that would reduce funding for Hanford cleanup even further than the deep cuts already requested by the Trump administration. Hanford’s current fiscal year budget stands at nearly $3.3 billion. The Trump administration had proposed trimming that figure by roughly $455 million for the 2027 fiscal year, which begins in October. The House GOP plan would slash an additional $55 million on top of that.
The combined reductions would bring Hanford’s budget down to approximately $2.77 billion, according to the House Appropriations Committee’s proposed spending plan for the Department of Energy. The Senate has not yet released its own version of the budget.
The proposed cuts appear to be partly driven by the administration’s push to dramatically expand defense spending, with President Trump seeking to increase the annual defense budget from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion for fiscal 2027.
By the Numbers
- $3.3 billion — Hanford’s current fiscal year budget
- $455 million — total proposed reduction between the Trump administration and House Republicans combined
- 56 million gallons — radioactive fluids, sludges, and solid waste stored in 177 aging underground tanks at the site
- $30 billion — current estimated cost of the full glassification project, up from the original 2002 estimate of $4 billion
- 2052 vs. 2069 — official legal cleanup target versus the Department of Energy’s internal revised projection
The Scope of the Cleanup Challenge
Hanford produced plutonium for American nuclear weapons during World War II and throughout the Cold War, leaving behind one of the most complex contamination problems in the country. The site’s underground tank farm is widely regarded as the most radioactively contaminated location in the Western Hemisphere.
The cleanup plan centers on converting radioactive waste into a stable glass form inside large stainless steel cylinders, which are then stored in a specialized burial facility on-site. The first low-activity waste treatment plant came online last October and deposited its first treated waste cylinder in April. It is expected to take roughly a year to ramp up to full production capacity.
Roughly $228 million of the proposed cuts would come out of tank maintenance and the glassification process. Another significant reduction targets cleanup of the 324 Building, a contaminated laboratory structure sitting above an underground plume of highly radioactive strontium and cesium located less than 1,000 feet from the Columbia River.
Design funding for the high-level waste glassification plant — where the most dangerous material will eventually be processed — would be cut nearly in half under the House proposal, from $611,000 to $330,000. The federal government has set a goal of completing 90 percent of that design work by late 2027.
State Officials Push Back
Washington State’s ecology director, Casey Sixkiller, warned that the proposed reductions would set back progress at a site where cleanup obligations are legally binding. “The additional cuts proposed in the House budget are unjustified, falling even below the president’s request to Congress,” Sixkiller said in a public statement.
Hanford’s cleanup schedule is governed by a three-decade-old legal agreement among the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the state of Washington, with additional federal court orders establishing enforceable deadlines. Despite those obligations, the Department of Energy has already internally pushed its projected completion date from 2052 to 2069, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
What’s Next
The Senate has not yet introduced its version of the Department of Energy budget, leaving open the possibility that final funding levels could differ from the House proposal. Washington state officials say they intend to work with the state’s congressional delegation to restore full cleanup funding. Any final budget would need to reconcile the House and Senate versions before taking effect in October.
For Oregon communities and stakeholders along the Columbia River, the outcome of those negotiations will carry significant weight as the region watches one of the nation’s most consequential environmental cleanup efforts face new financial pressure.
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