The Department of Energy is required to “fully cooperate” with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and will restrict access in only limited cases such as when a representative of the safety watchdog lacks “an appropriate security clearance,” according to a deal reached this week.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that the two parties have worked on since the fall of 2020 was signed Thursday by Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) Chair Joyce Connery.
“Thanks to the efforts of expert teams from DOE and DNFSB, we now have an MOU that further strengthens the relationship between our organizations to ensure effective oversight of our defense nuclear facilities,” Turk said in a joint press release from the agencies Friday. “I want to thank the senior leaders of both agencies, and especially the staff, who worked tirelessly to create this MOU,” Connery said.
Connery announced the signing of the deal via her Twitter page (@joyconnery). The agreement governs interactions between the organizations after Order 140.1 was handed down by DOE during the Donald Trump administration.
The four-page agreement covers information sharing for DOE’s defense nuclear facilities. It reiterates the board’s mission is to “provide independent analysis, advice, and recommendations to the Secretary of Energy” on health and safety issues that could affect the public or employees at nuclear defense sites.
Furthermore, the DNFSB can set up “binding reporting requirements” for DOE and hold public hearings in accordance with its congressional mandate, according to the MOU. Generally speaking, “DOE will provide DNFSB Resident Inspectors with access to facilities, personnel, and information in a manner equivalent to site employees, such as Facility Representatives, Cognizant System Engineers, and other employees with access.”
The board’s staff will follow “processes agreed upon pursuant to this MOU,” when seeking access to DOE facilities, personnel and information, according to the document. As for the board, it should provide DOE with “reasonable advance notice of upcoming DNFSB oversight visits and reviews.”
The board will identify what DOE or federal contractor people it wants to meet with regarding a safety issue, and DOE in turn “will make every effort” to make them available, according to the MOU. The parties will revisit the MOU every two years to see if any modifications should be made.
The deal has been in the works for a long time.
A year ago, the DNFSB said it and the DOE were still tweaking the language in a draft memorandum. A DOE-DNFSB working group was formed in October 2020 “to provide a foundation for mutual communication, transparency and information sharing to promote operational and interface efficiencies.”
The order, initially handed down during the tenure of Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, set up various new administrative hoops and procedures and granted DOE the ability to restrict DNFSB attendance to certain people and places at DOE nuclear sites. The DNFSB, created by Congress in 1988 amid growing concerns about safety at nuclear-weapon sites, pushed back hard.
The DNFSB is a small agency, only around 100 employees, with no regulatory enforcement teeth. Nevertheless, it scored a big win against the order in Congress when the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act said the board should receive prompt and unfettered access to DOE people and information. The talks to better define the terms of that access soon ensued and have now concluded.
