Portman issues statement after Piketon plant announces possible layoffs

U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) has released the following statement on the announcement from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) of WARN Act notices for cleanup workers at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio:

“Today's announcement that 500 Piketon employees could be laid-off by Oct. 1 represents another broken commitment to the community by this Administration.

“For the past three years Congress has been calling on this Administration to provide the Piketon site the stable funding it deserves. Congress was barely able to prevent the Administration from laying off 700 Piketon employees during the holidays last winter. I thought the Administration would have learned its lesson with that experience, yet here we are again not even a year later, facing nearly the same situation. The Administration’s refusal to do the right thing by this community is baffling, especially given the President’s past statements of support. 

“While campaigning for President in 2008, President Obama wrote, ‘The failure to clean up this site quickly will delay future economic development opportunities and only add additional mortgage costs and pose undue environmental risks.’ I stand ready to work with the Obama Administration and its Department of Energy to avoid these cuts, to maintain the commitment made to the community, to ready the site for reindustrialization, to deal with the environmental risk, and to ultimately save taxpayer dollars by maintaining a cost effective cleanup schedule.”

Portman has repeatedly pushed for accelerated cleanup and reindustrialization of the Piketon site. In a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources meeting last month, Portman continued his push to fully fund decontamination and decommissioning operations in Piketon.

Recently, Portman attended a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources’ nomination hearing for Dr. Monica Regalbuto to be Assistant Secretary of Energy (Environmental Management). If confirmed, Dr. Regalbuto will be in charge DOE’s Office of Environmental Management with oversees cleanup efforts at Piketon.  Portman submitted questions to Dr. Regalbuto expressing concern over the Administration’s $49 million cut to cleanup funding in Fiscal Year 2016 and requesting a commitment from her that if confirmed, she will develop a long-term plan for the cleanup efforts.

Earlier this year, Portman urged Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shaun Donovan to fully fund decontamination and decommissioning operations in Piketon.

Portman previously secured the inclusion of additional funding authority in the Fiscal Year 2015 Continuing Resolution to fund cleanup activities at the Piketon site.  The funding helped protect nearly 700 workers at the site who were at risk of being laid-off in October. Portman and U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) also called on DOE to provide answers regarding concerns over funding for the project, which currently employees 1,900 individuals 

In 2012, Portman worked with the former Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, to increase the cap on the uranium barter program to help cover a gap in appropriated funding. The uranium barter program has allowed the DOE to barter or sell natural uranium into the open market and use the proceeds to pay for a portion of the cleanup work at Piketon.