By George Lobsenz
As the lead agent for the Energy Department’s effort to slash “low-value, burdensome” safety and security rules, DoE’s independent oversight office is looking to eliminate half of the directives for which it is primarily responsible and proposing changes affecting such sensitive areas as foreign visitors to DoE facilities, accounting for “removable electronic media” such as computer disks and storage devices and radiation protection for the public and the environment, according to a newly released document.
The document is an attachment to a March 16 directive by Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman ordering a “reform” effort aimed at improving DoE productivity by “streamlining requirements and eliminating directives that do not add value to safety and security” and allowing contractors to “tailor” requirements to their liking without “excessive” federal oversight.
The attachment, which describes efforts undertaken by DoE’s Office of Health, Safety and Security (HSS) since November in preparation for Poneman’s order, was released March 30 by senior Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee in asking the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review the advisability of DoE’s reform initiative.
The request to GAO was made by Reps. Joe Barton (Texas), ranking Republican on the committee, and Michael Burgess (Texas), ranking Republican on the committee’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations.
In their letter to GAO, Barton and Burgess said they had questions about DoE’s reform initiative because it appeared to substantially “outsource” responsibility for safety and security oversight to DoE contractors.
The lawmakers noted that their committee had investigated repeated safety and security lapses at DoE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory and other DoE facilities over the past decade, many of which resulted from failure of DoE contractors to comply with security and safety procedures mandated by DoE directives.
Among other incidents, the committee investigated Los Alamos’ failure to keep track and properly secure so-called classified removable electronic media. In several incidents, computer disks and portable thumb drives and other storage devices carrying sensitive national security data that were either lost or taken off the New Mexico nuclear weapons lab site without permission.
At the same time, DoE and its semi-autonomous weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration, increasingly have sought to rely on contractor “self-assurance” systems to assess their own performance in meeting safety and security goals.
However, GAO, the department’s inspector general and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), have repeatedly questioned whether DoE should increase reliance on contractor self-assessment, citing repeated failure of contractors to properly identify or correct safety and security problems.
Barton and Burgess told the GAO they shared those concerns, saying the reform effort could undo recent hard-won safety and security improvements at Los Alamos and other DoE facilities.
“Given the long history of DoE’s management challenges and the grave safety and security risks within the nuclear weapons complex, it is imperative that DE ensure safety and security-related improvements that are currently in place can continue and be sustained and that DoE be cognizant of lessons from past incidents and management failures,” the lawmakers said in a March 30 letter to GAO.
“In light of this, we have concerns particularly about whether, and the extent to which, DoE should take steps now to outsource safety and security measures to contractors without strong federal oversight.”
Poneman, other department officials and many DoE contractors–along with some outside review groups–say the reform effort is long overdue, and that many of DoE’s safety and security directives are ineffectual red tape that merely bogs down contractors and vital DoE cleanup and weapons missions.
However, Barton and Burgess say the HSS office also has suspended independent inspections of DoE and NNSA facilities as well as “dozens” of internal reviews and assessments. They also said NNSA and DoE’s Office of Science already are implementing an oversight model at some of their sites that relies less on federal oversight and more on contractor self-assessment.
While DoE has provided virtually no specifics about which or how many safety and security directives it wants to eliminate, the internal DoE document released by Barton and Burgess indicates the scope of the “streamlining” effort being led by the HSS office is considerable.
The document says that as a result of a systematic review by HSS of DoE’s “safety and security regulatory model” since November, the oversight office has “identified 24 directives for potential cancellation (subject to consultation with the DoE program offices and the central technical authorities.)
“HSS has also developed approaches for safety and security disciplines that are expected to result in more than a 50 percent reduction in the number of safety and security directives for which HSS is the office of primary interest.”
On a list of “priority actions,” the attachment indicates the department is moving in the “near term” to “provide relief from specific burdensome security requirements by: 1) finalizing approval of the revised unclassified controlled nuclear information order; 2) issuing a policy memorandum on foreign visits and assignments; and 3) submitting a revised accountable classified removable electronic media policy for departmental review.” Those actions were supposed to be completed by the end of March.
By May, DoE hopes to develop proposals to “redefine the HHS independent oversight and regulatory enforcement functions” and “streamline the department’s worker health and safety, integrated safety management and oversight directives.” It also plans to “complete the revision and issuance of four nuclear safety orders” in May following consultations with the DNFSB.
By July, the department wants to “integrate the department’s environmental management and energy management directives.” Further, “due to the benefits achieved from departmental review already conducted,” the document said DoE by July plans to “complete the revision and issuance of the radiation protection of the public and environment.”
DoE plans by October to finish a revised safeguards and security policy by October.