The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) will hold two more public hearings about a controversial Department of Energy order the independent nuclear health-and-safety watchdog said would prevent it from exercising its lawful authority to inspect nuclear weapons sites.
Acting DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton mentioned the meetings in a Sept. 17 letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry, which the board posted on its website Wednesday. Details on the time and place of the meetings are still being discussed, along with who the board would invite, a DNFSB spokesperson said.
On Aug. 28, the DNFSB held a public hearing at its Washington headquarters about DOE Order 140.1, issued in May. During that hours-long hearing, the board heard brief testimony from Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, then questioned two other department officials at length.
“The testimony indicated that the Department would not fulfill its obligations under the Atomic Energy Act based on its unilateral interpretation of the statute,” Hamilton wrote. His letter was also distributed to the leadership of the House and Senate Appropriations and Armed Services committees.
In its order, DOE said the board’s authority does not extend to sites the agency claims do not endanger public health. Chris Roscetti, the DNFSB’s technical director, testified during the hearing the measure could prevent board inspectors from entering 70 percent of the sites to which it currently has access. Hamilton, in his letter to Perry, said federal law gives the board, not DOE, the power to determine whether a defense nuclear facility poses a threat to public health.
Order 140.1 also seeks to curtail DNFSB access to information DOE considers deliberative, or in draft form. Hamilton said Congress gave the board the authority to determine what information it needs from the agency to do its job.
The order likewise would block DOE contractors and federal employees from speaking with DNFSB personnel unless DOE signs off on the interaction. The agency said in the order this will help it speak with “one voice” to the DNFSB. The board, however, says the law gives it the power to determine who it must speak with to protect public health.
Congress created the DNFSB in 1988. The board has no regulatory power over DOE, but it may make safety recommendations, with which the secretary of energy must publicly agree or disagree. With Order 140.1, DOE sought to block DNFSB from issuing such response-required recommendations about certain topics, notably any that concerned the safety of DOE’s federal and contract work force.
DNFSB has made nearly 60 formal recommendations in its 20-year history, or an average of about three a year. About 20 percent of those recommendations concerned DOE worker safety, Roscetti said at the Aug. 28 board hearing.
