Mike Nartker
NS&D Monitor
1/17/2014

The Department of Energy is considering creating a new Departmental organization that would be responsible for DOE’s major line-item construction projects across various programs, NW&M Monitor has learned. The proposal appears to be in its early stages, and its scope remains unclear, though it likely would entail those major construction projects currently overseen by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management and the National Nuclear Security Administration. DOE declined to comment on the issue late this week.

Both EM and NNSA have faced heavy scrutiny for years over their management of major construction projects, most of which have experienced significant cost-and-schedule increase. In EM, such projects include the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility and the Idaho Sodium-Bearing Waste Treatment Facility. In the NNSA, such projects have included the Uranium Process Facility located at Y-12, the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Savannah River’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. In early 2013, the Government Accountability Office partially removed EM and NNSA from its biannual “high-risk” list, narrowing its remaining concerns to EM’s and NNSA’s major construction projects and high-value management and operating contracts.