Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
6/20/2014
House appropriators are once again expressing concern over how the Department of Energy manages major projects in the Office of Environmental Management and the National Nuclear Security Administration. While DOE has made some improvement in its ability to “deliver small projects on schedule and within budget,” the Department “continues to struggle to keep its major construction projects on track,” lawmakers wrote in the report accompanying the House version of the Fiscal Year 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations bill. The text of the report was made public this week ahead of the bill being reported out of the full House Appropriations Committee.
Among the concerns raised by appropriators is that DOE lacks a baseline against which it can monitor the progress of major cleanup projects, as well as EM’s two large construction projects—the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant and the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility. “As a result, the Department is unable to provide to the Committee the anticipated cost and schedule for completing those projects,” the report says. NNSA’s major construction projects also came under question. “Of the ongoing major construction projects of the NNSA, the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility and the Uranium Processing Facility are both facing serious challenges and it has become clear that the Department may not have sufficient funds to complete the facilities in a timely manner,” the report says. “Even as the Department analyzes potential alternatives, the Committee is concerned that it may be repeating the mistakes of the past by relying on poor cost estimates and rushing to commence construction activities before planning activities are sufficiently mature.”
Is DOE Following Its Own Requirements?
Lawmakers also criticized DOE for failing to enforce its own standards on major projects. “The Department submitted a reprogramming request to the Committee to initiate a major recapitalization of its plutonium infrastructure at Los Alamos National Laboratory using operating funds, despite having formal requirements under DOE Order 413.3B which clearly applied to the acquisition of those capital assets. The Committee will not support requests for capital investments that do not provide sufficient accountability for delivering those investments within budget and on schedule,” the report says, adding, “The Committee expects the Department to not only monitor performance of its projects, but also ensure that its requirements are not being circumvented by simply redefining what scope of work is considered to be a ‘project.’”
House Bill Provides Less for New WTP Interim Pretreatment System
The House spending bill would also provide less than what DOE is seeking for next year to begin work on a new interim pretreatment capability for the Hanford vit plant. In its FY 2015 request, DOE asked for $23 million to begin work on the Low Activity Waste Pretreatment System, which is part of the Department’s plan to start up the Hanford vit plant’s Low Activity Waste Facility, Facility, along with its Analytical Laboratory and other support facilities (collectively known as ‘LBL’), ahead of the other portions of the WTP that still have technical issues that need to be fully resolved. The House version of the FY 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, however, would only provide $12 million to begin “detailed design activities,” according to the committee report. “The Committee does not support further acceleration of construction for the new framework agreement until DOE can resolve the cost and schedule uncertainties of its proposal,” the report says.
The House bill would match DOE’s request of $690 million for the WTP, though the report expresses concern over the Department’s cost accounting practices for the project. “The Department needs to provide considerably greater detail on the use of its funding, including its anticipated cost and schedule requirements for resolving the outstanding technical issues of the WTP,” the report says, adding, “The Committee is also concerned that DOE has been shifting the allocation of funding for WTP-related work between Tank Farms and WTP subprojects by adjusting accounting codes for ‘Shared Services’ in an effort to artificially show that a nominal $690,000,000 per year is being spent on the project. It is essential that the Department establish formal methods of accounting for its project costs so that overall progress can be tracked, contractor performance can be monitored and taxpayer dollars are not wasted.”
