Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Thursday demanded the Energy Department brief Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs staff by July 21 about what the senior senator from Missouri considers a questionable contracting arrangement between Bechtel National and AECOM at DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state.
McCaskill, the committee’s ranking Democrat, questioned in a letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry why Bechtel should be allowed to act “as a subcontractor to itself” on the Waste Treatment Plant the company is building at the Hanford Site to treat more than 55 million gallons of chemical and radioactive waste left over from Cold War plutonium production.
In January, Bechtel and AECOM formed Waste Treatment Completion Co. (WTCC) to complete construction of Waste Treatment Plant and start up the facility for treatment of low-activity waste. The company is a subcontractor to Bechtel.
Bechtel’s WTP prime contract, awarded in 2000, is now worth about $14.6 billion. The plant is due to start treating less-viscous, low-activity waste by 2023, and sludgier, high-level waste by 2036, a federal judge ruled last year. Bechtel aims to start low-activity waste treatment in 2022. If treatment doesn’t start by then, the company would forfeit a more-than $150-million award fee.
McCaskill, in her June 29 letter, questioned whether DOE would have the insight it needs into the subcontract.
“In order to better understand the nature of DOE’s approval and oversight of the contractual arrangement between [Bechtel] AECOM and WTCC I request that DOE provide a briefing to my Committee staff on or before July 21, 2017,” McCaskill wrote in a letter on committee stationary. Hers was the only signature on the letter.
Bechtel and AECOM did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
