DOE’s Nuclear Clean-up Program: Under Fire

“By damn, we want it done now,” said clearly frustrated Senator Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), referring to the long-running search for a permanent solution to the Department of Energy’s nuclear waste storage problem. The harsh criticism by the members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at a July 29 committee hearing provides ample evidence that DOE’s Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Program is under the gun.

Describing the Clinton Administration’s approach to DOE’s nuclear waste problems were DOE Assistant Secretary Thomas P. Grumbly and EPA Deputy Administrator Robert Sussman. The DOE mitigation program did not exist five years ago, but has since spent approximately $14 billion, money which several senators complained they had “shoveled” into the program with little to show for it. This is now the largest component of DOE’s budget, with $6.5 billion requested for fiscal year 1994.

Committee chairman J. Bennett Johnston (D-Louisiana) listed four issues confronting the program, including program management, technology development, clean-up standards, and priority setting. Complaining that “nothing is getting done,” Johnston criticized the “paper pushing” and “Alice in Wonderland” management of the program, warning, “we cannot let it continue.” “If it sounds like I am deeply concerned about this problem, you’ve got it right,” he told the witnesses.

Grumbly outlined DOE’s priorities, first of which is worker safety. DOE is moving to control urgent risks, such as some storage tanks on the Hanford Reservation which, if they exploded, could spread a plume across the Northwest United States. Grumbly wants to distinguish safety measures from long-term remediation. He also spoke of controlling costs and spending, effective land use planning, improving stakeholder relationships, and demonstrating tangible results. The committee’s senators seemed to be generally pleased and somewhat reassured by this approach.

They were less hospitable towards EPA Deputy Administrator Sussman, criticizing the agency for duplicative requirements. Senator Mark Hatfield (R-Oregon) asked Sussman if agency policies are driven by superstition or science. Hatfield complained that the clean-up problem is a “toxic abyss that has no bottom.”

Grumbly said that more money needs to be spent by DOE on basic research on this problem, and advocated reaching out beyond DOE contractors to the broader academic community for its help. He gave high marks to vitrification technologies.

It was apparent that the senators are willing to give the Clinton Administration some, but not unlimited, time to act on this problem. Johnston urged that clean-up strategies be based on science, and not on public sentiment. He told DOE and EPA to let Congress know what new “tools” they need. At the hearing’s end, there was one obvious conclusion: Congress is running out of patience. Increased congressional scrutiny of this program is a given.