"We cannot let the federal government shirk its responsibility to Hanford cleanup," said Smith, who sits on the committee with jurisdiction over nuclear cleanup funds, the Procurement Subcommittee of the House National Security Committee.

"It's totally irresponsible of Congress to turn their backs on the Hanford cleanup project," Smith said. 
"How will the people trust us to invest in future defense technologies if we can't clean up our messes of the past?" 

At issue is the Hanford Tank Waste Remediation System privatization project. Currently 56 million gallons of waste reside in 177 tanks at Hanford that are vulnerable to leaks and explosions. The cleanup process, called vitrification, will remove the waste and process the material into glass logs.
Privatization requires corporations to front the capital to build clean-up facilities. When the private company produces the finished product, glass logs, the Department of Energy will reimburse the company at a predetermined price.

Congress has been called on to fund the Tank Waste Remediation Reserve Account, which will cover the full costs of construction, financing, design, profit and any possible additional expenses for the project. 

"The reserve account should be funded incrementally, by putting away some money every year," Smith explained. "Although we won't actually pay out the money until 2003, we should be saving some money for the account each year."

Furthermore, Smith says, privatization won't work unless the reserve account is maintained. "Corporations that chose to bid for the contract must have some assurance that the funding will be there for them when they've fulfilled their end of the bargain," Smith said.

It is estimated that a minimum of $110 million is needed to go towards the reserve account in 1998; however, Procurement Subcommittee leadership originally planned to not fund the account at all.

"I made it clear that was unacceptable," Smith said. "A bipartisan group of my colleagues agreed with me, and subcommittee leadership funded the account at $50 million."

However, Smith says that $50 million still isn't enough. "At bare minimum, we need $110 million for the cleanup project this year," he said. "I'd like to have even more, but I won't accept anything less than $110 million."

The next step is consideration of the full National Security Committee tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. According to Smith, committee leadership may have gotten his message. "We may have convinced Chairman Floyd Spence to put the $110 million in the budget," he explained. "But if he doesn't, we will offer an amendment and fight for Hanford cleanup funding.