WASHINGTON — The head of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) told members of Congress here Tuesday he hopes the Department of Energy will “fix” a controversial rule that could limit board access to nuclear weapons facilities during the agency’s upcoming one-year review of the directive.
In May 2018, the department issued the controversial Order 140.1, which the DNFSB said would stop its independent federal health-and-safety inspectors from accessing parts of some DOE nuclear weapon sites, and from writing safety recommendations to protect federal civil servants and contractors.
Now, DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton told members of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee in a hearing, DOE has a chance to amend Order 140.1 by removing language “allowing the department to determine where we look.”
All three current DNFSB members agree that the Order 140.1 as written runs afoul of the Atomic Energy Act by restricting DNFSB oversight of certain parts of DOE nuclear-weapon sites. Among these are facilities that DOE says could not release enough harmful material in the event of an accident to harm people outside a DOE site.
Even if DOE does not alter Order 140.1, Hamilton said, federal law gives the DNFSB subpoena power over the agency and the “statutory right to ask for reports” about active and former nuclear weapon sites.
If Order 140.1 stands, “the concern is not that I can’t get access to information. The concern is that I may have to use some of those more tough tools that slow down the process,” Hamilton told lawmakers.
Congress created the DNFSB is 1988. The roughly $30-million-a-year federal agency does not regulate DOE, which is its own regulator at active and former nuclear-weapon facilities, but it can make safety recommendations with which the secretary of energy must publicly agree or disagree.
Both subcommittee Chairman Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) and Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) said they remained concerned about what they perceived as DOE’s moves to muzzle the DNFSB.
In Tuesday’s hearing, NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty reasserted DOE’s position that Order 140.1 does not prevent DNFSB oversight.
