The first initiative provides Department of Energy managers and contractors an incentive for lowering overhead costs and requires the DOE to spend the savings from management efficiencies directly on cleanup. 

"One contributing factor to people's frustration with Hanford is its out of control overhead costs — too much money is going to management and not enough is going to cleanup," Smith said. "The contractors and the Department of Energy are nowhere close to achieving their goal of limiting overhead costs to 30 percent of their budget. Instead, they've been shifting overhead costs into other accounts to give the appearance overheads have been lowered." 

The Smith language first defines overhead costs and then directs the Department of Energy to not spend more than 33% on these costs. As an incentive for reaching this goal, Smith has set aside $30 million to be spent on critical cleanup projects at Hanford. 

"My policy closes the loopholes on the overhead-cost-shifting-game, and then sets a reasonable overhead cost goal for the DOE/Hanford contractor team," he explained. "I expect the cost savings to be close to $30 million dollars, and the funds generated from this will be spent on unfunded, legally binding cleanup programs at Hanford." 

Smith's language also shifts $75 million slated to go to the Department of Energy headquarters to environmental management projects across the nation. Hanford will receive $17 million dollars from these funds to be spent on cleaning up the controversial nuclear waste tank farm where leaking tanks have been discovered. 

"It's imperative that we clean up these leaking tanks for two reasons," Smith explained. "First of all, the leaking waste is dangerously close to the Columbia River; and second, the Department of Energy has not kept their end of the bargain with regards to cleanup and could be facing a lawsuit from the state of Washington if they don't speed up the cleanup efforts."

With the Smith initiatives, the Fiscal Year 1999 Defense Authorization bill will fully fund all the compliance gaps at Hanford's leaking nuclear waste tank farm. Total projected revenues from these initiatives are $77 million dollars for Hanford cleanup.

Smith is hopeful that his language will survive the Conference Committee. "These initiatives should make sense not only to people representing Washington and Oregon, they should be supported by anyone concerned about government waste, efficiency, and environmental cleanup," he said. "At the same time, I am gearing up for a Conference Committee fight if necessary. I am confident in these provisions and will go to the mat for them."