Hearing of the Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee - Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Request for the Department of Energy's Offices of Environmental Management and Legacy Management

Statement

Good afternoon, everyone. We have before us today Dr. Ines Triay, Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management. She is accompanied by Mr. David Geiser, Director of the Office of Legacy Management. They will be presenting the President's fiscal year 2012 budget request for the Offices of Environmental Management and Legacy Management.

The fiscal year 2012 request for Environmental Management is $6.1 billion, $124 million more than fiscal year 2010. The Environmental Management program has the difficult mission of cleaning up the legacy of five decades of nuclear weapons production as well as other nuclear research activities. The current effort requires cleanup of dangerous materials at 18 sites across 11 states.

Dr. Triay, we appreciate your aggressive efforts to cleanup these sites. In addition to the roughly $6 billion your office receives each year, the stimulus Act provided your program with a substantial amount of additional funding. Many of those projects are meeting cost and schedule targets, allowing you to accelerate your cleanup goals and accomplish a great deal of work.

However, despite your efforts, the Office of Environmental Management remains on the Government Accountability Office's high risk list once again this year. With major increases being requested for your largest construction project --the Waste Treatment Project at Hanford-- we need to hear how you have addressed the problems of the past.

The Legacy Management budget request is $170 million, $21 million less than the fiscal year 2010 level, to fulfill the responsibilities of the Department where cleanup activities have already been completed. Mr. Geisner, to your credit, your office accepted additional site and program responsibility while reducing your overall request. We are interested in hearing more on your plan to take on more responsibility while controlling overall costs.

Our chairman, Mr. Freylinghuysen, is absent today. I will reiterate the same information he has given to every witness who has testified before this subcommittee this year. It is highly unlikely there will be any new funding in fiscal year 2012 for our subcommittee. We must therefore balance a number of important activities while doing its part to reduce spending and bring down our deficit.

I would ask that you ensure that the hearing record, responses to the questions for the record, and any supporting information requested by the Subcommittee are delivered in final form to the Subcommittee no later than four weeks from time you receive them. I also ask that if Members have additional questions they would like to submit for the record, that they please do so to this Subcommittee by 5:00 PM tomorrow.

With those opening comments, I would like to yield to our ranking member, Mr. Pastor, for any opening comments that he would like to make.

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