Today at over 100 sites across the country, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Environmental Management program is responsible for storing, treating, or remediating 1.7 trillion gallons of contaminated groundwater, 40 million cubic meters of contaminated soil and debris, 18 metric tons of weapons-usable plutonium, over 2,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel, and over 100 million gallons of high-level liquid waste. It is estimated that this massive cleanup effort will continue for the next 70 years and cost between $168-212 billion. In fact, the most thorough remediation at some sites will never be able to remove all of the contaminants. The DOE has recently embarked on a long-term stewardship program to prepare for the ongoing surveillance and maintenance of these remediated sites.

In order to comply with the "Superfund" law and the Federal Facilities Compliance Act, the federal government waived its right of sovereign immunity and agreed to bring all federal facilities into compliance with existing environmental laws. The DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the states have now entered into legally-binding agreements to bring federal facilities into compliance with environmental laws and to focus resources and efforts on the highest priority cleanup challenges. While the DOE’s cleanup budget has stabilized at about $6 billion a year, the cost of complying with these agreements has increased over time. We now face a fork in the road. Either Congress provides additional resources to the DOE cleanup budget or the federal government will fail to meet its compliance commitments to states, local communities, and the constituents we represent.