Senators Step Up For Hanford Cleanup Money Senate Approves Spending Bill While Restoring House Cuts

Three Northwest senators weighed in to protect the Hanford Nuclear Reservation Tuesday as a key panel restored more than $700 million in House cuts from the Energy Department’s waste cleanup budget.

Sens. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Slade Gorton, R-Wash., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., all serve on the appropriations subcommittee that approved a spending bill close to the $6 billion President Clinton requested for cleanup.

“Even in this era of belt tightening, Congress has acknowledged its obligation to make sure that Hanford is cleaned up,” Gorton said.

Murray said funding for Hanford was the Northwest delegation’s top priority in the bill, which the energy and water subcommittee forwarded to the full committee.

“I was in the Tri-Cities on Saturday, and the concern on people’s faces was really evident - the economic dislocation and overall fear that we would not follow through on the cleanup,” she said.

The Senate panel’s version would spend $5.989 billion to clean up nuclear waste nationwide, compared with the House’s $5.26 billion. After full Senate approval, a final compromise will be worked out by a House-Senate conference committee.

“If the House members stick with their number, we are going to really be in trouble in reaching the cleanup goals,” said Murray, who says the new GOP-led House is going overboard in cutting spending.

In past years, former House Speaker Tom Foley, D-Wash., played a key role in protecting spending for Hanford cleanup. But Foley was upset by Rep. George Nethercutt, one of six freshman Republicans now in Washington’s nine-member House delegation.

Murray stopped short of criticizing Nethercutt, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, or Rep. Doc Hastings, a freshman Republican representing the 4th District including Hanford.

But she said in an interview, “It always has been clear that seniority in a delegation keeps funding in a state. I think we are seeing some of the effects of that this year with appropriations in the House.”

The biggest chunk of the cleanup program in Clinton’s proposed budget, about $1.4 billion, is slated for the Hanford site near Richland. In addition to the general cleanup fund, the Senate panel approved:

$50 million for the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory.

$15 million for the Hazardous Materials Training Facility.

$26 million to remove radioactive waste from the “K Basins.”

The House had approved those same levels, with the exception of $40 million for the lab to develop new cleanup techniques.

The Senate stripped House language prohibiting use of some nuclear materials funds for economic development. The Tri-Cities community surrounding Hanford has used those funds in the past to help train workers laid off at the DOE site.

The Senate bill also provides $90 million in another “community transition” account for DOE sites affected by the shift away from production of nuclear weapons. Clinton had requested $100 million, and the House approved $75 million.