House budget restores some Hanford cuts

RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) - The House budget proposal for the Hanford Nuclear Reservation next year would add almost $54 million to the amount requested by the Trump administration.

The additional money is the result of work by U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., along with two other Hanford supporters on the House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee - Chairman Mike Simpson of Idaho and Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash.

The Tri-City Herald reports that the House rejected the president's proposed cuts to the Richland Operations Office for Hanford cleanup.

The proposal would still leave the budget for fiscal 2018 below current spending of about $2.4 billion, by about $60 million.

Hanford for decades made plutonium for nuclear weapons and now is engaged in cleaning up the resulting wastes.