The Department of Energy budget request for Hanford and other nuclear waste sites is $1.1 billion short, said senators in an appeal Wednesday to the Senate Budget Committee.

Under that proposal, about 500 jobs would be cut at the Hanford reservation.

Absent an adequate DOE budget request that lives up to promises of accelerated cleanup, the committee needs to include additional money in the fiscal year 2009 Budget Resolution, said the letter signed by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and six other senators.

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., and other representatives are writing a similar letter to address the House version of the DOE budget, according to Hastings' staff.

The administration budget proposal for 2009 calls for $5.5 billion to be spent on cleanup of nuclear waste sites, down from peak funding of $7.3 billion in 2005.

Adding $1.1 billion to the 2009 budget would bring it to the 2006 funding level.

"Long-range schedules for cleanup at all of these sites continue to slip because of reduced funding," said the letter from senators. "We have repeatedly seen that the longer cleanup is extended, the more cleanup costs."

In 2003 and 2004 DOE planned to divert spending to close smaller sites, then roll savings into accelerating cleanup of large sites such as Hanford. But as smaller sites closed, the DOE environmental management budget dropped.

"We are gravely concerned about the continuing downward trend in the environmental management budget," the letter said.

In addition to Cantwell, those signing it were Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Larry Craig, R-Idaho; Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, both R-Tenn.; and Gordon Smith, R-Oregon.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., didn't sign the letter because of her seat on the Senate Budget Committee, where she is in a position to help increase the budget.