The Department of Energy should designate someone as a sort of crisis-response czar in case of another national emergency such as COVID-19, according to an agency report on the pandemic published this week.
DOE should revise existing crisis response plans to, among other things, “[p]rovide the Secretary with latitude to designate a director or ‘person in charge’ with the necessary authority and support,” the agency’s Office of Enterprise Assessments wrote in the 17-page report, titled Lessons Learned: Command, Control, and Communication During the COVID-19 Pandemic Response.
Overall, according to the report, the DOE’s existing crisis response plans “do not provide a simple, direct framework for agile decision-making and action.” Also, “[w]ithout a unified line of direction and communication, line organizations implemented inconsistent policies and guidance that caused some conflicts in the field for sites under multiple line organizations.”
Chris Fall, director of DOE’s Office of Science, had “responsibility for overall direction and control of the response” to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, but, with the lack of a deputy secretary of energy for more than half of the outbreak, the secretary of energy had to approve some of Fall’s actions.
Fall also had no legal authority over the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which largely coordinated its own pandemic response.
“Aligning the Department and NNSA actions took some time, but DOE leadership adapted to this challenge,” the report reads.
The National Nuclear Security Administration had confirmed 2,588 cases of COVID-19 among its contractors and federal employees as of Dec. 11. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management had confirmed 2,009 cases as of Dec. 11, the most recent date for which data were available at deadline for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
The Department of Energy has nearly 110,000 contractors and more than 14,500 federal employees, according to its 2020 financial report.
