While some other federal agencies are bringing personnel back into the workplace, there is no timetable for Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) staff to return to their offices in downtown Washington, D.C.
“No date has been set for a return” to board headquarters on Indiana Avenue, DNFSB spokeswoman Tara Tadlock said in a Thursday email.
About 100 DNFSB workers, including contractors and board members, normally work at headquarters, Tadlock noted. Since late March, however, virtually all of them have been working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The board is sensitive to the federal guidance on returning to work issued by the Office of Personnel Management, along with data from local governments in the District, Virginia, and Maryland, Tadlock said. The board will use information from those agencies in determining when headquarters will reopen. To date, Washington, D.C., has more than 9,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and heavily populated counties in the neighboring states are also reporting large numbers of infections.
The Energy Department said this week it will gradually begin recalling people to its downtown Washington and suburban Maryland offices starting Monday. Most DOE Office of Environmental Management and semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) sites reduced their on-site staffing in late March and many are starting to recall people to the jobsite.
The DNFSB is an independent oversight organization created by Congress in 1988 to provide advice on public health and safety issues at Department of Energy defense nuclear facilities. While it has no direct authority to regulate the sites, it can issue recommendations to the secretary of energy, who must then publicly accept or reject them.
The DNFSB has field inspectors at the defense nuclear sites and they file regular reports to board management, which posts them online. Most board business is continuing to take place virtually. Field inspectors have still been visiting the defense nuclear sites during the pandemic.
The DNFSB has a budget of $31 million for fiscal 2020.
