At least some of the advisory committees chartered to provide independent perspective on nuclear matters to the Department of Energy — including one that represents the neighbors of Cold War nuclear-weapon sites — continued to operate beyond a Sept. 30 presidential deadline to cull such groups.
President Donald Trump on June 14 ordered federal department heads to get rid of at least one-third of their Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) committees: government-chartered panels that provide independent, nonbinding advice to agencies.
There are about 20 such groups within the Energy Department, fewer than half of which provide advice on nuclear weapons, nuclear cleanup, and nuclear science. Among those is the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, whose members represent local governments and communities located near nuclear-weapon sites and labs being remediated by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management.
One of the parent board’s eight local boards, the one representing the Idaho Site, is set to meet on Oct. 24, according to a notice published last week in the Federal Register. Likewise, the chairs of the eight local boards are scheduled to convene in Ohio the week after that, from Oct. 29-30, according to another notice.
Also operating post-purge is the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board. The group, which provides independent management advice about all DOE programs to the secretary of energy, met last week in Chicago.
The Department of Energy still has not said, or replied to multiple requests for comment about, which of its advisory panels it plans to eliminate. To continue a FACA committee, the agency had to obtain a waiver from the White House Office of Management and Budget. Among the committees hanging in the balance are the Defense Programs Advisory Committee, which provides classified advice about the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration’s active nuclear weapons programs.
The Defense Programs Advisory Committee last met in Washington on Sept. 25, according to the NNSA’s most recent notice about the group.
There were four triggers in Trump’s order for canceling FACA committees, and none more open-ended than the last: a group could be terminated if “an agency determines the cost of [a committee’s] operation is excessive in relation to the benefits to the Federal Government.”
A committee was also to be eliminated if: Its “stated objectives of the committee have been accomplished;” its “subject matter or work of the committee has become obsolete”; or its “primary functions have been assumed by another entity.”
