March 17, 2014

ENERGY SECRETARY MONIZ OUTLINES AGENDA TO DOE EMPLOYEES

By ExchangeMonitor

Newly-sworn in Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz addressed federal employees during a webcast meeting yesterday, answering questions from across the complex and touching on major issues he intends to tackle during his tenure. Highlights included:

ON NNSA: ““Reducing the stockpile, [the] Comprehensive Test-Ban [Treaty]—the discussions are hardly worth having, frankly, if DOE isn’t doing its job in [nuclear security]. It’s going to be an important area. We have challenges. We have some governance issues we have to work out. Of course Congress … has an advisory panel on this that we will work with over the next year. This is very, very important responsibility.”

ON NUCLEAR SECURITY: “Another area Deputy Secretary Poneman and I are very committed to. We’ve accomplished a lot, but we can do a lot more. But we have to raise our game in terms of management reforms. We all know we have issues with some projects, we’ve had issues with security, and this is something we have to pay attention to. That will allow us to do much more in other project areas. We have to raise the focus on management performance, that’s a key enabler for this department.”

ON HANFORD: “Those of you who followed my confirmation hearing know that Hanford played a particularly large role. We have a four-step plan to pursue there, but we should have no doubt that we have a strong legal and moral responsibility to address those issues. The program again, often lost sight of, the program has made tremendous progress in the last 20 years but it’s also not surprising that some of the really hard ones are left to do. It’s going to take more than 20 more years to finish that program. But again, an area we have to address.”

ON NUCLEAR WASTE: “[We will] do what we can moving forward with the Congress, in essentially implementing, at least I will frame it because I was a member of the commission, implementing the Blue Ribbon commission approach as a different way to approach waste management. Now of course that may lead to some significant organizational changes, we’ll see how that plays out. Certainly going to a consent-based approach—it’s going to be quite a challenge, quite interesting, but that’s clearly a major responsibility.”

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