Other LanguagesOLYMPIA — Attorney General Bob Ferguson issued the following statement on the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling against a 2018 Washington law protecting Hanford workers. An updated law, which was passed in 2022, remains in place, ensuring that workers at radioactive waste sites like Hanford still receive compensation benefits for health issues they have faced because of their work.
Today the Washington Attorney General’s Office stood up for Hanford workers at the United States Supreme Court. The Office is defending Washington’s bipartisan state law designed to make it easier for workers to access the compensation benefits they earned when they develop certain illnesses from working at a site contaminated with radioactive waste.
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson offers the following statement on the Biden administration’s continuation of a Trump administration challenge to Washington’s law strengthening workers compensation access for sick Hanford workers:
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that a panel of judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously ruled that Washington has a right to create laws giving workers at Hanford Nuclear Reservation easier access to the benefits they deserve if they become ill because of their work at Hanford.
OLYMPIA — Attorney General Bob Ferguson offered the following statement on a U.S. District Court rejecting the federal government’s challenge of Washington’s law making it easier for Hanford workers to access workers’ compensation benefits:
OLYMPIA — Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that the U.S. Department of Energy will conduct testing and, if successful, begin implementing a new system to treat or capture hazardous tank vapors at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation within the next three years, under the terms of an agreement submitted to a federal court today.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson issued the following statement regarding reports of potential tank vapor exposures today near the Hanford Tank Farm. He filed a lawsuit in September 2015 regarding worker safety issues at Hanford.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson issued the following statement regarding today’s report that another double-shell tank holding toxic, radioactive waste at Hanford may be leaking.
OLYMPIA — Finding that, “given the preventative measures available and now mandated by the agreement of the parties, there is little to no chance of an imminent and substantial endangerment,” U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington Judge Thomas Rice today declined to require safety measures by court order in advance of trial. The federal government implemented those safety measures only after Attorney General Ferguson Bob Ferguson filed a motion for preliminary injunction with the court in July.