The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the small agency created to provide independent safety advice to the Department of Energy, no longer has a quorum following retirement of longtime member Jessie Hill Roberson, Congress was officially told last week.
Federal standards allow Chair Joyce Connery, with an assist from Vice Chair Thomas Summers, to keep DNFSB acting as a DOE safety watchdog for up to a year before losing its authority.
“This letter is to notify you that, pursuant to [the federal statute], the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board no longer has a quorum,” Connery wrote in a Thursday Oct. 19 notification to Congress, posted on the DNFSB website Friday. The five-member panel fell to two members following the Oct. 18 retirement of Roberson.
“Therefore, effective immediately, I will carry out the delegated functions and powers of the board” for up to a year, Connery said. “If a quorum has not been restored prior to October 18, 2024, the Board will remain without a quorum and the delegation will expire, leaving the board unable to exercise its authority.”
Connery has previously stressed the importance of returning the board to a full five members.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is thankful to Ms. Roberson for her decades of faithful service to the nation, the defense nuclear complex, and especially to the board, Connery said. “She will be greatly missed.”
President Joe Biden has nominated Patricia Lee, a manager at DOE’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, to succeed Roberson, but no action has been taken yet by the Senate Armed Services Committee. “People are anxious to have her complete that process,” Roberson told Exchange Monitor last week, saying stability among board members is important.
