Mike Nartker
NS&D Monitor
2/28/2014
A senior Department of Energy official late this week confirmed DOE has been examining the possible creation of a new organization that would be responsible for major line-item construction projects, but stressed that the idea was one among many under consideration to help improve how DOE manages projects. “There are a lot of ideas that are floating around. I think one of the things we try to do on project management is sort of do a blue sky look at ideas of things that might work,” Deputy Under Secretary for Management and Performance David Klaus said at a meeting the Energy Communities Alliance in Washington, D.C. “I don’t think I would give greater credibility to that idea or less credibility to that idea other than to say somewhere in that process people have suggested the idea, but it’s not like anything even is closely to the point of rolling in that direction.” Klaus added, “It’s an idea that’s out there. There are a lot of other ideas that are out there on how we can do a better job in project management.”
NS&D Monitor first reported earlier this year that DOE was considering creating a new Departmental organization that would be responsible for major line-item construction projects across various programs, including the Office of Environmental Management and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NS&D Monitor, Vol. 18 No. 3). 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 increases. 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.
