The former chair of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board used procedural tactics to block board approval of a COVID-19 response plan that complied with federal best practices, the inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.
The independent federal nuclear health-and-safety watchdog drafted a COVID-19 response plan at the onset of the pandemic, but that “plan for returning employees to work was not prepared in full accordance with government-wide guidance and agreed-upon best practices for safe, healthy, and effective office re-openings,” the commission’s inspector general wrote in an audit report released late last week.
When a board member moved in June to approve a more comprehensive plan, then-chair Bruce Hamilton, who left the board for personal reasons in September, abstained from voting on the motion. With the notionally five-member Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) then operating with only three Senate-confirmed members, Hamilton’s abstention left the board without a quorum, and unable to approve a new pandemic plan.
From mid-March through early August, DNFSB encouraged all but essential employees to telework when possible. The directive was the central pole of the board’s then-current pandemic strategy, the “DNFSB COOP for COVID-19 Pandemic Response:” a temporary plan of action for preventing the spread of the disease. The board revised the plan, periodically.
Beginning in June under this plan, DNFSB’s “office directors, deputy directors, associate directors, the leadership team and a small support staff” started to report to work two days a week, the audit report says.
“The former Chairman believed a re-entry plan was already in place with the COOP and that emergency operations, such as the pandemic, require unity of command as opposed to command by committee,” the inspector general wrote.
All the while, the inspector general said, the board’s temporary COVID-19 plan did not include strict guidelines about physical distancing, regular disinfection of areas frequented by people, temperature checks for staff reporting to offices and other places of business, or contact tracing in the event that someone at the board contracted a case of the respiratory illness.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s inspector general covers the DNFSB, which does not have an inspector general of its own. The commission regulates civilian nuclear matters, while the board makes safety recommendations for defense-nuclear facilities operated by the Department of Energy. Board jurisdiction includes active and shuttered nuclear weapons sites, but not nuclear navy sites.
DNFSB this month approved a fuller pandemic response plan.
