As part of a proposed reorganization of the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), Stacy Charboneau, manager of DOE’s Richland Operations Office at the Hanford Site, would move from Washington state to Washington, D.C., and become head of a new office to which the managers of DOE’s nine nuclear-cleanup field offices would report.
Charboneau’s promotion was one of three disclosed in a Wednesday email blast from Monica Regalbuto, assistant energy secretary for environmental management. Weapons Complex Monitor obtained a copy of the email.
In a Capitol Hill reception Wednesday evening, Regalbuto’s deputy, Mark Whitney, publicly briefed the proposed change for the first time, telling an audience of contractors and beltway insiders the “badly needed” reorganization could be official as soon as early July.
“One of the main reasons for doing this reorganization, is making sure we get back that field-centric focus,” Whitney said at the reception, hosted by the Washington-based Nuclear Energy Institute trade group. “I think to a certain degree, we’ve gotten away from our core mission, which is supporting the field.”
The proposed reorganization still requires approval from the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents federal workers. In a brief interview Wednesday evening, Whitney said DOE has “a meeting planned” with the union. A spokesperson for the union did not reply to a request for comment Thursday.
Charboneau, a 20-year DOE veteran, would become associate principal deputy assistant secretary for field operations, responsible for a new Washington-based Field Operations Office DOE plans to stand up as part of its second bureaucratic reorganization of EM since 2014. Currently, field office directors report directly to Regalbuto’s office.
In a May 26 PowerPoint presentation about the reorganization, DOE said the new Field Operations Office “promotes increased coordination and interaction between the Field and EM-HQ, and eliminates stovepipe organizations.” According to a draft mission and functions statement the agency prepared, Charboneau’s unit would provide “management oversight of, and direction to, all EM sites and facilities and champions their interests to ensure effectiveness and consistency in performance.”
Charboneau has since 2014 been manager of the Richland Operations Office, in charge of the mostly solid-waste cleanup, reactor interim storage, and groundwater remediation efforts at the Hanford Site’s central plateau and Columbia River corridor, along with building decontamination and demolition and site-wide services. Charboneau declined through a spokesperson to comment for this story. Doug Shoop, Charboneau’s deputy, would replace her on an acting basis.
DOE proposed putting Charboneau at the head of the Field Operations Office because “we thought it was very important for somebody from the field to lead that effort,” Whitney said Wednesday.
The proposed reorganization would turn seven separate EM offices known as mission units and mission supports into a three-branched tree comprising Business Operations, Field Operations, and Regulatory and Policy Affairs.
DOE plans to tap Frank Marcinowski to lead the Regulatory and Policy Affairs unit, and Candice Trummell to head the Business Operations unit, according to Regalbuto’s email. Marcinowski is now acting associate principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental management at EM headquarters in Washington. Trummell, a former EM hand of five years, has for the last 10 months been deputy chief of staff for Deputy Secretary of Energy Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall.
DOE has said the reorganization would not result in any layoffs or demotions, and that the agency will not make the changes official until the union completes its review.
With a roughly $6-billion annual budget, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management employs about 1,400 civil servants nationwide. That includes about 160 in Washington, and about 110 in Germantown, Md., some 30 miles northwest of the Capitol.
