02.10.04

Cantwell: DOE Finally Pays Up

Senator's Efforts Pay Off as State Collects Nearly $7 million

WASHINGTON, D.C . - After months of dogging the Department of Energy (DOE) to pay nearly $7 million owed to Washington state, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) received word that the money is on its way. The DOE wrote Cantwell answering her two letters demanding that the debt be paid.

"After months of skirting its responsibility to the taxpayers of Washington state, I'm glad to see the DOE taking responsibility for this debt," Cantwell said. "The old adage of ‘better late than never' works here. These are tough times for the state, and this money will surely help."

Cantwell originally wrote to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham about the debt last October. She followed up with a letter in January after Washington state Attorney General Christine Gregoire filed a lawsuit against the DOE seeking payment of an outstanding debt of nearly $7 million owed to the state for over ten years.

At the beginning of January, Gregoire filed a lawsuit in the District of Columbia Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals seeking payment of the $6.8 million debt. It sought payment of $6.8 million owed to Washington State as a payment equal to taxes that could have been imposed when the Hanford Reservation was being considered for the national High Level Nuclear Waste Repository site.

In 1986 the DOE's Hanford Reservation was chosen as one of three final candidates for the nuclear waste repository. The department eventually ruled out Hanford , deciding instead on Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 requires that the DOE pay the equivalent of state taxes for activities carried out during the consideration of a potential repository site. While the department made a partial payment, it disputed nearly $7 million that it owed the state under the law.

Washington state filed a claim for the funds in 1993 and won every hearing on the issue, including two this summer with the DOE's Office of Hearing and Appeals.