Members of Congress this week voiced their displeasure about a planned downsizing of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, and with a Department of Energy order that some, including the board itself, fear will lock the federal agency out of much of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.
“In light of the many concerns with the changes made by Order 140.1, we urge you to suspend the new order to give the members of the board an opportunity to provide comments and feedback, including issues raised by stakeholders at the planned public hearings,” Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) wrote in a Sept. 5 letter to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.
Perry, through Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, published Order 140.1 in May. The order, which DOE says streamlines and updates an older directive, requires the department to coordinate all staff communications with the board and restricts contractors’ ability to interact with the DNFSB.
Members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said in an Aug. 28 hearing with DOE officials that the order could cut its access to DOE nuclear weapon sites by 70 percent by barring the board from certain facilities that, the agency said, do not endanger the public. They also expressed concerns that the directive would prevent the independent defense-nuclear health-and-safety watchdog from exercising its legal authority to compel Perry to comment publicly on issues of worker safety, among others.
Heinrich and Udall were particularly concerned that Order 140.1 could block DNFSB access to key facilities at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the agency has posted resident inspectors and where DOE is slated within the next decade to begin producing fissile nuclear weapon cores. They also said the order might block DNFSB inspectors from entering the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.: a deep-underground disposal site for plutonium-contaminated material and equipment.
Congress created the DNFSB in 1988 to watch for health and safety hazards at DOE nuclear-weapon and cleanup sites. The board has no regulatory authority over DOE, but it may issue formal safety recommendations with which the secretary of energy must agree or disagree.
A DOE spokesperson did not reply to requests for comment Thursday.
A day before Heinrich and Udall wrote to Perry, two senior Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee wrote to acting DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton to express their displeasure about his plan to freeze hiring and shrink the board to 79 full-time employees from the current 100 or so. Hamilton has said DNFSB can downsize simply by not filling vacancies created through retirement or departures.
Hamilton announced the planned downsizing Aug. 15. The changes, slated to take effect Oct. 1, were approved by all but one of the four current DNFSB members. Only board member Joyce Connery, DNFSB chair during the latter half of the Barack Obama administration, objected.
Nevertheless, the proposed downsizing has touched off concerns from Reps. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), the ranking members of the House Armed Services Committee and its strategic forces subcommittee.
“We have yet to see any written analysis to explain the proposed cut to the Board’s staff by a third, and repeated requests by our committee staff for a detailed briefing on these proposed changes have gone unanswered,” Cooper and Smith wrote in a Sept. 4 letter to Hamilton. “Therefore, we expect a more detailed explanation for this sweeping change that would have enduring implications and potential significant risk for ensuring nuclear safety. In the meantime, we strongly urge you and the Board to reconsider this change.”
Smith and Cooper said the DNFSB can ill afford to shrink at a time when the National Nuclear Security Administration ramps up spending to pay for its share of the 30-year nuclear-weapon modernization started by the Barack Obama administration.
The two commitee members also took a swipe at Hamilton by name, writing that his proposal “begs the question as to whether you are providing the kind of leadership that will strengthen, rather than weaken the board.”
Hamilton had previously provided Cooper, in an Aug. 22 letter, with a two-page description of the proposed reorganization.
In that letter, Hamilton said the DNFSB has turned over nearly 60 percent of its staff since 2014, well before he became acting board chair. Hamilton also said the board’s headquarters staff, “despite the superlative quality of the individuals themselves, has become lethargic and unresponsive to the needs of the Members of the Board.”
Hamilton also said his plan would increase the DNFSB’s permanent field staff — those inspectors who work from DOE nuclear facilities — to almost 20 from the current 10.
“Change of this nature is rarely easy or without controversy,” Hamilton wrote in the letter to Cooper. “In my view though, and as endorsed by the Board, this reform will better equip the agency to achieve its mission.”
