Gov. Gregoire�s statement on commission touring Hanford site

For Immediate Release: May 26, 2010

OLYMPIA � Gov. Chris Gregoire today issued the following statement on the announcement that the Blue Ribbon Commission on America�s Nuclear Future � a commission established by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu � will tour the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in July:

�I welcome the Blue Ribbon Commission on America�s Nuclear Future to Washington state, and look forward to the opportunity to personally show commissioners the truly historic clean-up effort at Hanford and the progress our dedicated workforce is making there to clean up the largest nuclear waste site in the nation.

�I�ve spent most of my years in public service fighting for clean-up at Hanford. Our citizens deserve it. Our environment and economy are dependent on it. Accelerated clean-up means jobs now � and jobs well into the future. In the Washington counties below Hanford, roughly 25,000 companies rely on clean, safe water from the Columbia River to provide 280,000 jobs and a payroll of $9.5 billion � 10 percent of our state's economic activity.

�That�s why as attorney general I helped negotiate the Tri-Party Agreement, and why I continue to advocate for adequate federal funding to see the job through. Meeting with the commission in July gives our state another opportunity to display our success, our dire need for a long-term and complete solution and to demonstrate why the Hanford site won�t work as a permanent storage site for our nation�s nuclear waste.�