By Chris Mulick, Herald
Olympia bureau
OLYMPIA—Measures to
clarify Heart of America's Hanford cleanup initiative may quickly become the
subject of a partisan fight in the Legislature over the merits of the initiative
itself.
And Sen. Jerome Delvin,
a Richland Republican who last week introduced one such bill to aid an isotope-producing
Richland company caught up in the legal fray, now says he's not sure he wants
his bill to pass.
"Good question. I don't
know right now," said Delvin, who has taken heat from Hanford contractors
whose contracts may be affected by Initiative 297. "I've got some heavy
thinking to do."
Richland Republican Reps.
Shirley Hankins and Larry Haler oppose the bills and Sen. Mike Hewitt, R-Walla
Walla, said Tuesday that he will also. At the core of the issue is whether clarifying
the allegedly flawed initiative will weaken the federal lawsuit to have it thrown
out entirely and, if so, whether it's a good idea to leave it flawed to make
it vulnerable.
"The concern is you
take the bullets out of the gun," Hewitt said. "We need to leave the
courts as much ammunition as we can give them."
Though it's possible House
and Senate lawyers could decide a simple majority will do, it is believed any
bill to alter the initiative would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers.
That would give minority Republicans the ability to kill any such bill.
Initiative 297 passed easily
in 37 counties -- all but Benton and Franklin—in November. It tries to
prevent the federal government from importing new nuclear wastes to Hanford
until existing wastes are cleaned up. Opponents argued it actually could hamper
cleanup efforts.
The federal government has
filed suit, claiming the initiative violates the U.S. Constitution on several
grounds. On the day the initiative took effect, DOE moved to stop a wide range
of activities at Hanford and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory that
might fall under the initiative's definition of hazardous materials.
IsoRay, a Richland company
that produces cancer-treating radioactive isotopes, also was told to halt operations
and is considering moving to Idaho.
The state and federal governments
have agreed to take no action on the initiative until spring and the Department
of Energy is not expected to ship most types of radioactive waste to Hanford
until the lawsuit is resolved.
In the meantime, the Legislature
is mulling two bills to clear up the initiative so companies like IsoRay aren't
forced to leave the state. Delvin's two-sentence-long Senate Bill 5357 clarifies
that the initiative only applies to nuclear wastes managed by DOE, not materials
used for medical research or in manufacturing or industrial processes.
Senate Bill 5445, brought
by Sen. Adam Kline, a Seattle Democrat and one of the initiative's first supporters,
does the same but is more extensive.
A 90-minute hearing on both
measures Tuesday sounded more like a hearing on the initiative rather than the
fixes being proposed. Much of the discussion centered around whether I-297 is
a good idea. Initiative supporters pressed the Senate Water, Energy and Environment
Committee to move past that.
"That debate's already
been decided," Robert Pregulman, director of the green-leaning Washington
Public Interest Research Group, told the committee. "All that is irrelevant
at this point. The people have spoken."
"I am hoping the shouting
has died down," Kline said of the campaign. "I hope the political
fights are behind us on this one."
Heart of America Director
Gerald Pollet blasted the federal government's reading of the initiative, and
said no such issues involving IsoRay or other companies were raised during the
campaign and that getting it clarified is most important.
Mark Reavis, a Tri-City
labor leader, spoke against the bills and questioned whether it was Heart of
America's intent to prevent Hanford waste from being shipped to other states.
And he drew a laugh when he told committee Chairman Erik Poulsen, a Seattle
Democrat, that "if I was to run an initiative on your light rail right
now, I could get majorities in 37 counties."
Delvin criticized the Legislature
after the hearing for not taking up the initiative before it went to voters
last year and said Tri-City leaders should have tried to force the issue, saying
"we stuck our head in the sand."
"This is the discussion
we should have had last session," he said.
