Biden Push of Trump Nuke Waste Plan Irks Tribe, Washington State

The Biden administration’s backing of a Trump-era move to expedite cleanup of the country’s biggest nuclear waste site has run into staunch opposition from Washington state and tribal officials.

The Energy Department and its supporters, which include some communities near the sites, say changes in cleanup strategy are needed to make progress amid decades of political gridlock and mounting costs surrounding waste sites.

Opponents fear the agency is looking for a legal avenue to eventually seal some radioactive waste tanks at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash.—the ancestral land of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama ...