The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is set to consider a draft recommendation for the Department of Energy, according to a vote tally posted online.
The board voted three to zero in favor of a meeting to consider a “staff generated outline for a draft recommendation provided to the Board on January 23, 2018,” according to a vote sheet posted online. The date of the meeting was to be decided at deadline for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
Chairman Sean Sullivan, set to leave the board Friday, abstained from the vote, as did board member Joyce Connery, Sullivan’s immediate predecessor as chair. Bruce Hamilton, the vice board’s chairman, joined members Jessie Hill Roberson and Daniel Santos to approve the meeting.
The DNFSB is an independent federal nuclear health-and-safety watchdog that oversees active Department of Energy nuclear-weapon facilities and Cold War cleanup sites. The board has no regulatory power, but it may issue recommendations about defense-nuclear sites with which the secretary of energy must publicly agree or disagree.
The DNFSB must by law publish the text of its recommendations, but it could be months before that happens. If the draft outline approved becomes an actual draft recommendation, the board will have to send that draft to Energy Secretary Rick Perry for a mandatory pre-publication review that lasts at least 30 days.
To give some idea of the total timeline, the draft outline provided to the board Jan. 23 was the product of a closed-door board meeting in December, in which the five DNSFB members discussed what could become their first official recommendation to the Donald Trump administration.
A DNFSB spokesperson in Washington did not reply to a request for comment Wednesday.
