The following interview with House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee Chair Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) was conducted last week by Weapons Complex Monitor Editor Kenneth Fletcher.
WC Monitor
2/13/2015
I’d like to talk a bit about the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget request and what some of your priorities will be going forward in the coming fiscal year.
Well, obviously we have some commitments we have to maintain in the weapons activities. The budget request from the Administration was a pretty substantial increase actually within weapons. But this all comes in the context of they have more in their total overall budget than we’re going to have, frankly, when we get done with the budget resolution. I don’t know exactly what that number would be, but I suspect we’ll probably still be down a couple of billion dollars from what the Administration’s budget looks like. So taking that into consideration, I want to hear their justifications and their testimony when they come in and tell us what they need the increase in weapons activities for to meet the goals.
The cleanup sites are up slightly, some $45 million or so. But I’m concerned that the other cleanup sites are down around $64 million from what they proposed. Those are things that we’ve got to maintain our goals on because we’ve got agreements with states. I want to know how all of that’s going to fit in and make sure that we’re going to be able to meet the agreements with the states. Otherwise there could be some substantial penalties involved.
Then one of the things that really concerns me is they cut about $900 million last year out of the Army Corps of Engineers and this year it’s been about $751 million that they cut out of the Army Corps. And frankly that’s not going fly in the House. So we’re going to have to find a way to replace that $751 million. So given the fact that we’re going to be down a couple billion, probably, and the fact that we’ve got to find almost a billion for the Army Corps, that’s going to put pressure on all these other budgets that they’ve plussed up, whether it’s the energy efficiency and renewable energy or ARPA-E or any of the others. So it’ll be a challenging budget.
In a couple of areas we have weapons activities that we need to keep on track. And that will be some of the questioning during the hearings—is it necessary to increase to these levels to keep us on track for the Ohio-class submarine and the modernization of the weapons activities? If that’s the case, then that’s going to put even more pressure on some of the other accounts.
Last year you said DOE needs to paint you a picture of its goals and where it’s headed. It sounds like you still may not have a clear picture of DOE’s path forward. Does DOE’s FY’16 budget paint you a picture, or does it raise more questions than answers?
Right now I would just say it hasn’t answered those questions. But I got to be real honest with you, I haven’t had the time to sit down and go through it since it was released in the detail that I need to go through and ask the questions that I need to ask those of the Department. I’ll have some briefings set up that are not hearings for the full committee. One of those things I’m going to be talking to them about is okay, where are we going to spend this nonpro money and what you’re going to do, and what do we expect to see from it and what is the plan going forward for all of this. It’s the same with the weapons activities. I need to know if we’re going to meet our goal this year, what is it going to be next year and the out-years.
You’ve also said in the past that the Appropriations subcommittees should get back to doing more oversight of government agencies. What are your plans this year in your committee for DOE oversight?
You do a little bit oversight just when you do the normal budget hearings. But I’d like to have some oversight hearings on issues, not necessarily a particular agency, but we should have an oversight hearing on nonpro activities and find out what that’s all about. We should have an oversight hearing on the weapons activities, and one on the overall cleanup activities, how is that working and what are going to be the anticipated costs in the future for environmental management. Have we transferred all of the facilities from some of our sites to EM to be cleaned up so that we have a true picture of what the liabilities are out there? I’d like to have some oversight hearings, but we haven’t scheduled any of them yet because we’ve just been scheduling the ones for the budget. But issue-related oversight hearings is what I’d like. I’d like to have some oversight hearings on what the hell happened to WIPP in New Mexico.
It’s been a year now since the radiological release at WIPP and there haven’t been any hearings yet in Congress about it.
Now there will be some.
Have you been happy with how DOE has handled last year’s radiological release at WIPP?
I don’t know that I would have done anything differently. They’re being very careful obviously and they want to know exactly what happened. And it’s going to be expensive, frankly. You know, I’ve heard all the stories about kitty litter and this inorganic versus an organic, and what might have caused this. But I’m obviously concerned because many waste barrels were shelved with the type of absorbent that may be problematic. They’re going to have to close that panel down and they’re going to have to redo the ventilation system and open up a new panel. And that’s going to take some money. I suspect by the time it’s all done it’s probably going to be $300 million or $400 million.
The other concern I have is it’s delayed shipments to WIPP. There are states like Idaho where this waste is being kept on-site, and it jeopardizes our ability to meet some of the state agreements. I think most states will be understanding. But if they’re not, there are going to be some penalties involved. So we’ll have to see how that plays out. But I haven’t been unhappy with the Administration. They’ve tried to keep me up to speed on what’s going on there.
Speaking of penalties, New Mexico has already put out more $50 million in fines related to the events at WIPP and Los Alamos. There are also fines on the table in Idaho, Washington and South Carolina.
One of the challenges we’re going to have, with New Mexico getting $50 million in penalties and stuff, governors now have dollar signs in their eyes. They’ll look at it as imposing a tax now. Now, Idaho was actually pretty decent. They imposed only about half of the penalty that they could have. They will get the Sodium-Bearing Waste Facility up in Idaho in relatively short order — three or four months. So it won’t be a huge penalty like the $50 million in New Mexico.
You know, I understand where New Mexico is coming from, but I don’t want them to use the penalties as a revenue source. The reason you have penalties is to try to make sure that the Department is keeping its commitments. If the Department, say, in Idaho had not been working to clean up the site, if they had not been trying to get the Sodium-Bearing Waste Facility running and they’d just kind of been ignoring it, that’s when penalties come in play. But the Department hasn’t been that way. They’ve been trying to do it. The one thing you don’t want to do is force them to go hard on this facility before it’s ready because then if something goes wrong, it’s a big-time problem.
How you use those penalties is important to hold the Department’s feet to the fire to get them to meet their commitments. But I fear that some states look at it as a way they can get several million dollars. They can do anything they want with it, the penalty money, and that is somewhat of a concern to me.
Another issue in DOE, of course, is project management. I know you’ve been following that topic. DOE has come out with a new project management approach in the last year or so. Do you believe the Department is making progress in that area? Are you seeing a turnaround?
Well, that would also be a good oversight hearing. In fact it’s one that ought to occur every year because DOE is on the list of worst agencies for being able to deliver something on time and under budget. I say that knowing that a lot of the activities that they undertake are first-of-a-kind projects and trying to estimate the exact cost is sometimes very difficult. But when you look at some of the huge cost over-runs, like at the [Hanford] Waste Treatment Plant, we ought to hold their feet to the fire to make sure that they follow through on improving their project management. They’re not bad at small projects, but the large projects kind of get out of hand sometimes.
DOE is talking about breaking big projects up into smaller bits—taking large facilities like WTP and the Uranium Processing Facility and moving towards a modular approach. Is that a better approach? Would it make your job easier as an appropriator?
I think it would. That also brings some challenges. It’s not only project management but what they’re doing in Idaho right now is they’ve proposed breaking up the environmental management contract into several smaller contracts. That’s brought some challenges from the contractors with how they put those contracts out. The Department’s gone back and redone some of them.
Those are all good oversight hearing subjects. What I’d like to do is, after we get our budget hearings out of the way and actually get the budget written, is have some of those oversight hearings. One of the most important activities that Congress does in general is true oversight hearings, not gotcha sort of stuff but how are things working, how can they work better, what can we do to help, are there things we can do to help.
Now that you mention the Idaho cleanup contracts, I’ve been following the concerns industry has had with the approach there. In general DOE has been trying to shift more risk to its contractors as part of its contract management strategy. But at the same time, for the core cleanup contract there at Idaho few contractors have expressed interest in pursuing it. Many have said they just can’t swallow the risk. Are you concerned about the lack of competition for that contract?
I’m absolutely concerned about it, and so is the community. It is something that we have to look at. I don’t know if they’ve made a final decision on that yet. But I think that DOE is concerned that they don’t have the number of contractors interested in it to create competition. That is the reason you rebid these things.
Is putting more risk on the contractor the right move?
I don’t know yet. I think it’s problematic, but it’s one of those things I’d like to learn more about why they’re doing that. If you could shift all the risk to the contractors you would. But have they gone too far to make it uncompetitive anymore? It might have been.
In the Office of Environmental Management, it’s been more than three years since there’s been a full-time Senate-confirmed assistant secretary in that position. For you, would it make a difference having a confirmed assistant secretary in the post, and does it impact the cleanup program?
I think it’s got to impact the cleanup program. An acting secretary, while they can do a lot and act like a secretary, the reality is that everybody knows that you’re an acting secretary. I think they need to make a permanent decision on the secretary. I don’t know why it has taken so long or why it’s so hard for them to find someone. It would certainly be better if they had a confirmed assistant secretary there.
Going back to communications and relationships with DOE, how often do you meet with Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz? Are you able to call him up and talk about these issues? How would you characterize your relationship with him?
I think we’ve got a great relationship. I go out to dinner with him occasionally. If he’s got an issue that he needs to talk about, he’s got my cell phone and he’s used it a few times, and I’ve got his cell phone and I’ve used that a few times. It’s a good working relationship.
Secretary Moniz understands politics also. You can have the best ideas in the world, but if you can’t convince the people who have to vote on them that they are good ideas, you don’t go very far. I’ve really enjoyed working with him and I think he’s doing a good job, I really do.
How does that compare with former Energy Secretary Steven Chu? Is there a difference in style?
Substantial difference. Secretary Chu, well he’s a very brilliant individual, but I don’t think he understood politics at all. And I don’t think he had people around him that told him the need to get out and talk to some of us that are obviously not as brilliant as he is, but we also have a vote. I don’t think he understood that very much. That’s not to take anything away from his ability as a scientist, but politics is a little bit different. Secretary Moniz understands that and frankly I think he kind of likes it.
Last August when we had the energy summit in Idaho Falls, I invited Secretary Moniz to come out. So he came out and did some stuff at the Idaho National Lab. Then we had a barbecue over at my house that night, it turned into about 70 people. It was going to be just several of us sitting around with a hamburger. But my wife put on a catered dinner and everything—our backyard looked like a wedding was going on. We had a little band and all that kind of stuff. And as soon as it started it just rained like hell. So we had to move it down to my basement. And we’ve got a great basement. They had set up alternative tables down there just in case it rained. I mean, that’s the kind of relationship we have. We can do fun things like that and I really enjoy the secretary.
Frankly, that’s how you get things done. I know when can have a frank conversation about any of these things in this budget, and I know he’s not trying to bullshit me. He’s told me exactly how he feels about stuff, and that’s good.
