Mike Nartker and Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
12/5/2014
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board would see a cut of approximately 15 percent in the maximum number of employees it can have under the final version of the Fiscal Year 2015 defense authorization bill unveiled this week. The bill would limit the DNFSB to 130 employees, down from the Board’s current limit of 150 employees. The measure would also authorize a funding level for the Board in FY 2015 of $29.15 million, about $1 million less than the Board had requested. The House voted late this week to approve the measure, and the Senate is expected to follow suit next week. DNFSB Chairman Peter Winokur did not respond to a request for comment on the final version of the defense bill this week.
The DNFSB was expected to have 120 employees by the end of FY 2014, and in its FY 2015 budget request sought an increase of approximately $2 million from current funding levels, with the additional money to go toward hiring five additional full-time equivalents to bring the Board’s staff to 125. House lawmakers had sought to lower the Board’s employee limit to 120 in their version of the defense authorization bill, while the Senate version had contained no language concerning the limit. In a statement of Administration policy issued earlier this year, the White House came out against the House bill, saying it would “severely hamper the ability of the Board to provide external, independent oversight of DOE’s defense nuclear facilities and compromise its core mission to protect workers and the public.”
In its budget request, the Board said that additional funding and staff are needed to “to address congressional concerns and provide the scientific and technical resources needed to review DOE’s design and construction projects, remediation activities, and weapons programs in a timely and efficient manner.” The request states, “The cost of re-engineering and making post-construction safety modifications to complex DOE defense nuclear facilities due to the late identification of significant design flaws would require significantly more resources than the Board’s requested budget. When incomplete or incorrect safety features are identified late in the design stage (or worse, in the construction stage) project costs are increased and schedules are delayed.”
DNFSB Releases Final Rule on Safety Investigation Procedures
Meanwhile, the Board this week issued a final rule for establishing procedures for preliminary and formal safety investigations at Department of Energy facilities, which includes a “safety privilege” aimed at protecting confidential information. Information given to the Board during an investigation can be treated confidential, “safety privileged” and non-public, according to the rule. It aims to facilitate “frank communications” with the DNFSB from witnesses in safety investigations. “The Board must also be viewed as uncompromising in maintaining non-disclosure of privileged safety information. The Board must be able to assure complete confidentiality in order to encourage future witnesses to come forward,” the rule states.
The finalization of the rule comes after the Board published a proposed rule in July 2012 and subsequently reviewed public comments. “The Board’s experience in conducting formal safety investigations necessitates codifying the procedures set forth in this final rule,” the rule states. “Among other benefits, these procedures will ensure a more efficient investigative process, protect confidential and privileged safety information, and promote uniformity of future safety investigations. The rule also promotes public awareness through greater transparency in the conduct of Board investigations.”
