The minibus appropriations bill on its way to President Donald Trump’s desk would block the independent federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board from downsizing by about 20 percent, and require the Department of Energy to explain why it has restricted some communications with the federal nuclear safety watchdog.
Bill language approved by Congress this week forbids the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) from using appropriated funds to carryout a board-approved decision to cut full-time staff to about 80 from the current 100 or so heads, beginning Oct. 1.
The explanatory statement appended to the bill, meanwhile, directs the Department of Energy to brief lawmakers within 30 days of the bill’s signing on the controversial Order 140.1: an agency directive issued in May that set new, stricter rules about how the agency and its contractors will interact with DNFSB. The board fears the order will block its access to about 70 percent of the DOE nuclear weapons sites DNFSB currently inspects.
Both measures originated with New Mexico’s Senate delegation: Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.). Their state is home to two DOE national laboratories and a waste disposal site, all of which are monitored by DNFSB inspectors.
“The DNFSB provides essential oversight to maintain safety for workers at New Mexico’s national security labs, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and the surrounding communities. Our provisions will help keep the DNFSB a strong and independent watchdog for the safety of New Mexicans and the long-term health of our DOE facilities,” Heinrich and Udall said in a prepared statement.
The DNFSB can make recommendations about health and safety at active and former DOE nuclear weapon sites, but not about the agency’s naval nuclear reactors program. The secretary of energy must by law respond to the board’s formal safety recommendations.
Also this week, the DNFSB announced it would meet in private Sept. 17 to mull a potential safety recommendation to DOE, which earlier this year bounced back the board’s first draft recommendation since 2015 with a curt refusal to comment.
The four-member board did not disclose the nature of the “potential recommendations” it could consider in the closed-door meeting at its Washington headquarters. In February, DOE refused to discuss a draft recommendation on atmospheric dispersion modeling at the Savannah River Site, in part because the recommendation touched on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s tritium facilities at the Aiken, S.C., site.
In an April 27 letter to then-DNFSB Vice Chairman Bruce Hamilton, Paul Dabbar, DOE’s undersecretary of energy for science, said the board’s legal authority required it to make safety recommendations to protect the public, not to protect DOE employees or contractors.
The DNFSB sees things differently. Board member Joyce Connery, during an Aug. 28 hearing with DOE officials, said workplace safety issues that might initially imperil only DOE workers could spiral out of control and eventually harm the public.
“Low-level events … may impact only the workers prior to a series of failures which could ultimately lead to a release of [contaminants] off-site,” Connery said at the time. “If I cannot evaluate all the layers of defense in-depth to understand where potential weaknesses exist, I cannot make a determination of adequate protection for the public.”
In the Aug. 28 DNFSB hearing, Matthew Moury, associate energy undersecretary for environment, health and safety, reiterated that the agency does not want the board to include DOE worker-safety notes as part of formal board recommendations. The department believes its own rules adequately protect its workforce, Moury said.
The DNFSB usually lets the DOE examine recommendations in draft form before publishing them and effectively starting a timer for a public response. The board has made nearly 60 recommendations in its roughly 20-year history, including more than a dozen that address worker safety, according to Chris Roscetti, the DNSFB’s technical director.
Since Dabbar spiked the draft recommendation early this year, DOE has only taken a stricter stance about its interactions with the DNFSB — notably Order 140.1 in May.
