The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Senate section on pages S4638-S4639 on July 18, 2011.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS
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TRIBUTE TO ASSISTANT SECRETARY INES R. TRIAY
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, it is with great privilege that today I honor and express my thanks to Dr. Ines Triay, Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management at the Department of Energy for her service to our country.
The Environmental Management Program at DOE has consistently been a priority for me during my tenure in the Senate, as Washington State is home to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. As a part of the Manhattan Project, Hanford produced plutonium from 1944 until 1987, and the efforts of Hanford workers and the Tri-Cities community helped end World War II.
Today, under the leadership of Dr. Triay, Hanford workers are involved in an environmental cleanup project of enormous scale necessitated by the processes required to transform raw uranium into plutonium for bombs. These processes generated billions of gallons of liquid waste and millions of tons of solid waste which must now be cleaned up, removed, or remediated. Dr. Triay and her staff have worked closely with both the Richland Operations Office and the Office of River Protection to ensure cleanup efforts at Hanford continue to move forward in a meaningful and timely fashion.
Ines has devoted her career to the safe and timely cleanup of radioactive waste and facilities from our Nation's Cold War nuclear weapon production and research sites. Ines, a Cuban-born immigrant who earned her Ph.D. in chemistry, has worked at DOE for 24 years, rising from her position as a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory to Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management, a Presidentially nominated, Senate-confirmed position. During her tenure as Assistant Secretary, she has led the largest, most diverse, and technically complex environmental cleanup program in the world.
One of Ines' greatest successes came after Congress invested $6 billion in the Environmental Management Program. Ines led the effort to accelerate important cleanup projects to reduce the Environmental Management footprint across the country. The success of this investment has been, by all measures, incredible--Ines and her team were able to reduce the footprint of the entire Environmental Management complex by 50 percent.
For the past several years, I have worked closely with Ines and I have seen firsthand her commitment to making sure the federal government meets its obligations to protect the health of our communities at Hanford and around the country. Her professionalism, passion and knowledge has contributed significantly to the successes of the Environmental Management Program in recent years, and I will miss working with her and her staff on a daily basis.
On behalf of all Washingtonians, and on behalf of our country, I thank Ines for her dedication to the mission of the Environmental Management Program, for her passion and expertise, and for her commitment to the safety and well-being of the people working at Hanford and at Environmental Management sites around the country. Ines will be difficult to replace. I congratulate Dr. Triay on all of her successes as Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management and wish her the best of luck moving forward.
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