Oregon Public Broadcasting

A federal watchdog group wants to fire the Department of Energy from its job of cleaning up the contaminated Hanford Nuclear Reservation in south-central Washington. The Heart of America Northwest made the announcement Monday from the nation’s capital. Correspondent Anna King has more.

Gerry Pollet has spent the last two decades of his life thinking about how to clean up Hanford faster and better as the leader of a government watchdog group. This year he’s extremely discouraged. He says the Department of Energy should be taken out of the equation all together. He claims the agency hasn't secured enough money for cleanup and it’s allowed massive cost overruns.

Pollet: "This administration has failed to meet its legal obligations and it’s failed to prioritize cleanup. And the Energy Department is not going to change without some radical new direction from the next administration."

Pollet wants the federal government to create a commission which would oversee Hanford cleanup instead of the Department of Energy. He hopes that bringing attention to cleanup issues now will plant a seed and encourage presidential candidates to promise change. Department of Energy officials haven’t  responded to the criticism.