WASHINGTON — The leadership of the federal government’s independent health-and-safety watchdog for Department of Energy defense-nuclear sites is plagued by mistrust, one member said in an open meeting here Wednesday.
“There’s a good deal of mistrust still among board members and, to put in bluntly, hurt feelings,” according to Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) member Joyce Connery. Connery was appointed to the board in 2015 by then-President Barack Obama and chaired the five-person panel until January 2017.
The DNFSB met at its headquarters for the second of three scheduled meetings to discuss a scathing report from the National Academy of Public Administration. The November report, which the DNFSB ordered in an attempt to reverse falling staff morale and worsening relations with the Department of Energy, found that the board was underperforming in its mission to protect the public from potential dangers at DOE nuclear sites.
Connery did not detail any specific reasons for mistrust among the four current board members, and none of the others respnded to her comments. However, Jessie Hill Roberson, the longest-tenured DNFSB member and a Democrat like Connery, nodded throughout her fellow board member’s remarks.
Later in the meeting, Connery said individual board members should not have conversations with congressional staff without a third-party witness.
“I just want to make sure that when we have those interactions that it’s not just one board member with Hill staff or with a member without a member of the professional staff and/or other board members,” Connery said.
Connery has openly sparred with DNFSB Chair Bruce Hamilton, presently the sole Republican on the board. The DNFSB, like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, may have no more than three members who belong to the same political party. In particular, Connery objected to Hamilton’s plan to cut the DNFSB’s headcount to 80 from 100 and permanently relocate more of the board’s staff to DOE facilities from Washington.
All of Connery’s fellow board members voted in favor of Hamilton’s plan last year. Connery stood alone in opposition, slamming Hamilton for crafting the proposal and asking for board approval “without so much as a discussion” with his colleagues first.
Congress subsequently blocked the reorganization for a year, as part of the 2019 appropriations bill that funded both DOE and the DNFSB.
