Slow Work At Hanford Under Fire

Sitting next to a stack of documents that reached from the table top to his head, Rep. Doc Hastings blasted the Hanford bureaucracy for creating too much paperwork and not enough results.

Testifying before a House panel Tuesday, the Pasco Republican unloaded a box of papers, then sat in their shadow as he spoke.

“What I have here are Department of Energy orders that relate to Hanford - 265 orders - and this is only one-fifth of the orders at the beginning of the year,” Hastings said.

“What I suggest is you have a formula for selling copy machines and Xerox paper,” he said of federal efforts to clean up decades of nuclear waste at Hanford.

Hastings also suggested the House adopt his solution: legislation that shifts more cleanup oversight to Washington state and vests more authority in a presidentially appointed, on-scene supervisor.

Members of the Commerce Energy and Power subcommittee seemed impressed.

“I look at your stack of papers there, and it’s unbelievable,” said chairman Dan Schaefer, R-Colo., who also has a nuclear waste site in his home state.

The subcommittee is composed largely of lawmakers angry about the slow purging of hazardous wastes left over from the Cold War.

Hastings, who chairs Newt Gingrich’s task force on Nuclear Cleanup and Tritium Production, introduced his legislation in July. The bill still is being considered by a trio of committees.

It would give states regulatory control over nuclear cleanups and empower site managers with more decision-making authority. The bill is co-sponsored by eight of Washington’s nine House members - all except Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle.

“Our intention in this bill is to have, for lack of a better word, a czar to look over and take care of these sites,” Hastings said.

, DataTimes