Congress needs straight answers from the Department of Energy on what requests for more money for the Hanford $12.2 billion vitrification plant mean, said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash.
He spoke Thursday to the Energy Community Alliance in Washington, D.C., and provided a copy of his speech to the Herald.
Hastings questioned whether the increased funding requests meant that DOE needed more money during peak work years at the plant under construction or whether it needed more money overall to finish the plant.
Preliminary results of the most recent Construction Project Review of the vit plant indicated that the cost of the plant might increase by $800 million to $900 million. A final report is due in October.
DOE has proposed an accelerated funding profile for the plant, which had planned to be built on a steady $690 million per year. Now DOE has said it would be more efficient to move some of the overall budget forward to peak work years.
It requested $840 million in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 and $970 million in fiscal 2013. However, proposed House and Senate budgets for fiscal 2012 include $740 million for the plant.
"Neither provides for the modified profile," Hastings said. "Congress has been clear on this point, and it's time for the department to stop adding risk to the project by planning exclusively to a funding profile that will not happen -- and frankly isn't desirable given the inevitable impacts on other cleanup projects."
More spending on any DOE cleanup project across the nation would reduce risks, but it is important that money is not spent on one project at the expense of the whole complex, he said.
"All of you here today deserve to know what it means for you, particularly in the wake of the most recent news that the total cost of (the vitrification plant) may go up," Hastings said.
At Hanford, the increase requested by DOE at the vit plant would come at the expense of the tank farms, where radioactive waste is stored that would be treated for disposal at the vit plant, Hastings said. Ironically, work at the tank farms must be kept on track to be ready to provide waste to the plant, he said.
DOE is aware of the widely held view in Congress among longtime champions of the plant, that the new funding profile is not realistic, he said.
Hastings also discussed his displeasure about the DOE reorganization in July that moved the Office of Environmental Management, which is responsible for Hanford, under the undersecretary for nuclear security.
It was moved under the undersecretary rather than made part of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which the undersecretary oversees, to get around the need for congressional approval, Hastings said.
The priority for Undersecretary Thomas D'Agostino, who visited Hanford this week, will be nuclear security rather than Hanford and other environmental management programs, Hastings said.
Hastings wrote Energy Secretary Steven Chu asking for answers six weeks ago, but has not received a response, Hastings said.
On the matter of disposing of unneeded land at Hanford and elsewhere as environmental cleanup is completed, Hastings offered some advice to the DOE Asset Revitalization Task Force.
Land no longer part of the cleanup program should not remain with the federal government indefinitely, he said.
Portions of the land should be made available for sale or transfer to attract private investment and new private sector jobs. And third, local communities must drive decisions about future land use, he said.
The Tri-City Development Council has asked for 1,341 acres of unused Hanford land just north of Richland for industrial development to replace jobs being lost at Hanford.
