To slow turnover in the top ranks of federal nuclear remediation, the Government Accountability Office is recommending Congress create a new Department of Energy post, under secretary for nuclear waste management and environmental cleanup.
As envisioned in the Government Accountability Office report, the DOE’s $7.6-billion Office of Environmental Management (EM) would be siloed beneath this under secretary, as would the assistant secretary for environmental management, who would serve a term with a specified number of years.
“GAO has previously supported establishing term appointments of at least 5 to 7 years for certain leadership positions,” GAO writes. “Legislation establishing a term appointment for EM’s top leader could help improve leadership stability, address challenges, and better support EM’s long-term mission to clean up nuclear waste by helping create an organizational commitment that can endure across administrations,” GAO said in the 44-page report issued Tuesday.
Several people interviewed by GAO suggested a set term might help insulate the top boss from political pressure applied by everyone from local stakeholders to members of Congress and other government agencies, GAO said.
The top boss at Environmental Management is responsible for addressing upwards of $407 billion of nuclear cleanup liability, but usually only serves two years on the job before turning over the desk to someone else, GAO wrote.
Since the Office of Environmental Management was created in 1989, 16 individuals have served as its top leader, or EM-1, with an average tenure of about 1 year and 9 months, the Congressional watchdog wrote in the report.
“In the last 2 decades, there have been five Senate-confirmed assistant secretaries (political appointees) and nine acting assistant secretaries or senior advisors,” GAO said in the report.
“Frequent turnover has created challenges for achieving the department’s complex and long-term cleanup mission, such as difficulty building relationships with stakeholders, inconsistent and incomplete initiatives,” GAO went on to say.
The current top manager at EM, senior adviser William (Ike) White who is a career fed, has already exceeded the average tenure, as next month he will hit three years as head of the office.
“DOE and EM are fortunate to have a proven and dedicated career federal federal leader managing the EM program for the past 3 years,” Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk said of White in a reply to GAO, included in the report. The senior advisory is fully empowered to carry out the duties of the office, Turk said. The DOE official said the agency is happy to consult with Congress on the best approach to ensure sound EM leadership in future years.
The report also floats the idea of making a sister entity to EM, the DOE Office of Legacy Management, report to the new DOE under secretary. The Legacy Management office “has consistently been located alongside EM” and assumes responsibility for sites once EM’s cleanup is completed, GAO said.
Two industry officials who spoke with Weapons Complex Monitor by phone Thursday seemed to greet the GAO report with a shrug.
As for creating a new undersecretary, “you can put it in the law but you can’t make the president nominate anyone,” said an executive with one DOE contractor. On the upside, it is good GAO realizes stability in leadership is needed when dealing with such complex, costly and emotionally charged issues, the source added.
A second executive with a different DOE contractor was disappointed in the report by the Congressional watchdog, which seems to believe the assistant secretary of environmental management, or EM-1, has more power than he or she actually does. The job of the EM-1 is to “work the building [in Washington, D.C.], keep the secretary informed and work the budget.”
The EM-1 does not negotiate contracts or come up with engineering plans and has only limited sway to get field managers to fall into line, the second industry source said.
The GAO report does suggest there can be a disconnect between top brass at Environmental Management and people working in the field. Both EM site managers and union leaders told GAO their input on policy is minimal and “stated that their input on previous reforms consisted of reviewing a draft of the proposed changes toward the end of the development process.”
