The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Inspector General’s Office plans in the current federal budget year to review the most serious potential vulnerabilities facing the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board as part of the IG’s responsibility to examine management and performance of the Energy Department watchdog.
In documents released last week, the NRC IG said challenges include organizational culture, security over internal infrastructure (both cyber and physical), and management of both technical programs and administrative functions at DNFSB. The points were outlined in an Oct. 18 letter from NRC Inspector General Hubert T. Bell to DNFSB Chairman Sean Sullivan.
These are areas that, without management attention, could hurt operations at the board, the letter says. While Bell didn’t go into great detail, he noted the growing importance of issues such as cybersecurity in a time of budget constraints and hiring freezes.
The NRC IG evaluates DNFSB management issues regularly under the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000. Congress left it to the discretion of the IG to decide what constitutes serious management and performance issues at the DNFSB.
“Challenges do not necessarily equate to problems, rather, they should be considered areas of continuing important focus for DNFSB management and staff,” Bell wrote in the letter.
Sullivan himself has recently recommended eliminating the DNFSB by amending the Atomic Energy Act. In a June letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget that recently became public, Sullivan called the board a relic of the Cold War that could be eliminated for budget savings. Sullivan’s suggestion met with resistance from some of his fellow board members and other issue watchers of the DOE complex.
In announcing its audit plans for the DNFSB in fiscal 2018, the NRC IG said an employee survey from early 2015 registered concerns about board communications. “Specifically, staff want more information about changes, decisions, how decisions are made, and how decisions and changes relate to the organization’s mission,” the NRC IG said.
On the upside, DNFSB staff and managers “believe strongly in the Board’s goals and objectives and are willing to put in a great deal of effort beyond what is normally expected to help DNFSB succeed,” according to the IG.
Through the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30, 2018, the NRC IG will look at DNFSB handling of new policy, staff turnover, and other development’s that could affect the board’s mission.
The DNFSB was created almost 30 years ago to evaluate public health and safety issues at DOE defense nuclear sites. As of the end of fiscal 2017, the DNFSB is composed of five board members and approximately 110 permanent employees and is supported by an annual budget of roughly $31 million.
Among the board’s personnel are resident inspectors at a number of DOE nuclear weapons and cleanup facilities, including the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
