Appearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill, new Department of Energy Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar was asked whether a recent DOE reorganization put too much on his plate by having him oversee both nuclear cleanup and federal scientific research.
“The Environmental Management portfolio has dominated the time and attention of whichever undersecretary has had it,” Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) said during a House Science, Space, and Technology Committee hearing on DOE priorities. “The new organization has you overseeing this largest nuclear waste cleanup effort in the world,” along with DOE’s scientific research arm.
Bonamici said Ernest Moniz, the energy secretary during the latter years of the Obama administration, thought it important to have these two major offices reporting to separate undersecretaries. The recently announced shakeup by Energy Secretary Rick Perry has the Office of Science, the $6.5 billion Office of Environmental Management, the Office of Technology Transfer, the Office of Legacy Management, and the National Laboratory Operations Board all reporting to the undersecretary for science. Environmental Management was previously part of the Office of the Undersecretary for Management and Performance.
The Office of Science proposed budget for fiscal 2018 was $4.47 billion, so together with the Office of Environmental Management the two offices account for about $11 billion of DOE’s $28 billion budget request for DOE.
“The big overlap between the two [EM and the Office of Science] is technology and project management,” said Dabbar, who took office in November. “They both do that very well.”
Dabbar, a former JP Morgan managing director who has also served on DOE’s Environmental Management Advisory Board, added the Office of Science has strong history of contract and cost management. These are important skills when major procurements must be managed, he noted. EM manages cleanup contracts at Cold War sites, such as the $1.39 billion legacy cleanup contract at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico recently awarded to Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos.
The Environmental Management and Science offices have compatible skills and it makes sense to have them under the same silo at DOE, Dabbar said. In his written testimony to the committee, he said the new alignment “will create added momentum in environmental cleanup.”
In addition to lauding the depth of talent at both DOE offices, Dabbar pointed to his own biography as a reason why the realignment should work.
“I sat on the Environmental Management [Advisory] Board for 12 years. I have been to Hanford many, many times,” Dabbar said, adding he had good knowledge of technical issues facing EM “and how to attack them.”
The Environmental Management Advisory Board provides outside advice and recommendations on cleanup issues to the assistant secretary for environmental management.
In his prepared testimony, Dabbar said: “We look forward to continued progress at key projects, including Low Activity Waste vitrification at Hanford and salt waste treatment at the Savannah River Site to significantly demonstrate risk reduction and progress in addressing our cleanup obligations.”
