The Hanford cleanup budget shell game

Lynn Porter, Hanford Watch -- February 14, 1999

What we're hearing lately, over and over, is that Hanford is not getting enough money for cleanup. Somehow we need to persuade our Congressional delegation to push hard for an adequate and stable cleanup budget.

Hanford's budget has become an elaborate shell game, apparently designed to shield all of the players from accountability.

The US Dept. of Energy is legally required to ask Congress for enough money to be in compliance with Tri-Party Agreement milestones (cleanup deadlines). The TPA is a contract, governing Hanford cleanup, between DOE, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Washington. DOE has missed milestones for lack of money.

DOE has been asking for enough money to meet TPA milestones. Sort of. President Clinton's Office of Management and Budget assigns budget targets to federal agencies. DOE arranges its budget request to OMB to meet those targets, by priority. Some of the items in DOE's budget request, needed for TPA compliance, are below the OMB target line. So OMB ignores them, puts together Clinton's proposed federal budget and forwards it to Congress.

Congress always adds more money for Hanford cleanup, but not enough for TPA compliance. Our congressional delegation, we hear, finds it very difficult to push for much more money than DOE, through OMB, "asks for."

The buck stops with Clinton, who has balanced the budget, in part, by keeping DOE's cleanup budget insufficient.

Meanwhile, people on the Hanford Advisory Board are getting very worried. Very expensive, very long-range, cleanup projects are being started, with no assurance that the money will ever be there to finish them.

The federal budget's 1999 fiscal year started last October. Congress is presently considering Clinton's proposed 2000 budget. Planning has begun on the 2001 budget.

Please take a minute to e-mail your senators and representatives. Their e-mail links are in the left column.

Thanks.