The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has “underperformed” its mission to protect the public from the hazards posed by defense nuclear weapons sites, and the quality of the small agency’s interactions with the Department of Energy has fallen to “an all-time low,” according to a study published this week.
The DNFSB contracted the National Academy for Public Administration to conduct the study, which was led by five academy fellows and started in March 2018. A DNFSB spokesperson said Tuesday the board will hold meetings in late December, January, and February to consider the report’s findings.
The five academy fellows based their study, published Tuesday, on a review of DNFSB documents and interviews with a wide cross section of mostly government personnel. Among others, they interviewed: employees of the DNFSB; the Energy Department; DOE contractors at active and closed defense nuclear sites; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and the leaders of a couple of local anti-nuclear groups from New Mexico.
“Examination of the overall volume of public correspondence, reports, and recommendations conveyed by the DNFSB to the DOE has dropped significantly over the past several years, suggesting that there are fewer public safety matters addressed by DNFSB to the Department than in the past,” the report says. “In addition, there is an overall opinion, articulated by the DOE, [the] Board, and other key stakeholders that the quality and strategic importance of board member engagement with the DOE has fallen to an all-time low level.”
Among specific findings, the study panel highlighted board members’ failure to cooperate and collaborate in their work. It urged them to establish a “vibrant vision, strategic plan, and action plans” at the DNFSB, focused on engagement with the Energy Department.
The study was conducted and published as DNSFB employees reported low morale for a second year in a row, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s inspector general. It also comes as the Energy Department has issued an order that could sharply curtail the board’s access to DOE sites and personnel.
None of the five national academy fellows who conducted the study previously worked for either the Department of Energy, its weapons laboratories, or the legacy nuclear cleanup program managed by the agency’s Office of Environmental Management.
Congress created DNFSB in 1988. The agency has no regulatory power of the Department of Energy but it may make safety recommendations about the agency’s defense nuclear sites — except for sites that support naval nuclear reactors — with which the Secretary of Energy must publicly agree or disagree.
The roughly $30-million-a-year agency nominally has five members, but currently has four. Longtime member Sean Sullivan resigned as chair in February after it came to light that he wanted Congress to dissolve the board. The kerfuffle contributed to already-low employee morale and spurred the board to explore less final means of reform.
The DNFSB has around 100 full time employees, most of whom work in the Office of the Technical Director, supporting inspections of and reporting on current and former nuclear-weapon sites. The DNFSB this year approved a proposal to downsize to 80 employees from the current 100 or so. However, Congress put that haircut on hold as part of the agency’s budget for fiscal 2019, which began Oct. 1.
