Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
6/6/2014
Funding for the Department of Energy’s defense environmental cleanup activities would be authorized at a level largely matching DOE’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request under the Senate version of the FY 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, details of which were made public this week. The Senate bill would authorize a total funding level of approximately $4.87 billion for work at DOE’s defense environmental cleanup sites, matching the Department’s request. On a site-by-site basis, the bill would authorize funding levels matching DOE’s request. The Senate bill would not, however, authorize funding for a new federal contribution to the uranium enrichment D&D fund, as the Department had requested. In its request, DOE had sought $463 million for a new federal contribution to the fund, which is used to help cover cleanup costs at the Oak Ridge, Paducah and Portsmouth sites.
The Senate bill is largely similar to the version of the FY15 defense authorization legislation the full House approved in late May. The House bill would also authorize a total of approximately $4.87 billion for defense environmental cleanup activities, and matches DOE’s site-by-site cleanup requests. The House bill, though, would authorize approximately $19 million in technology development funds for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, up $6 million from the Department’ request. In addition, the bill includes language that would create a Manhattan Project National Park made up of facilities at Hanford, Oak Ridge and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Like the Senate bill, the House version also does not include authorized funding for a federal contribution to the uranium enrichment D&D fund.
Panel Wants GAO to Examine WIPP Operations
Concerning cleanup, the Senate Armed Services Committee is also using its version of the FY15 defense authorization bill to have the Government Accountability Office review operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the wake of two incidents that have resulted in the facility being shut down for the foreseeable future. The GAO would be directed to “review program operations at the plant with respect to safety and contractor assurance systems and compare the operations of the plant with respect to best practices developed by the GAO for program management and safety standards by the DOE and other applicable agencies,” according to the committee report accompanying the bill.
The WIPP facility is currently shutdown as DOE works to recover from a truck fire that occurred in early February, and a radiological release that occurred later that month. A DOE investigation into the truck fire found that the incident had been preventable and highlighted a number of issues, including a lack of preventative maintenance and an inadequate response to the incident. The DOE investigation into the radiological release, the cause of which remains unknown, found inadequate safety requirements, safety culture concerns and lax oversight, among other issues.
Senate Bill Would Not Cut DNFSB Employee Cap
In addition, the Senate bill would authorize a funding level matching the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s FY 2015 budget request of $30.15 million. The Board is seeking an increase of approximately $2 million from current funding levels, with the additional money to go toward hiring five additional full-time equivalents to bring the Board’s staff to 125. The Senate bill, though, does not contain language that appears in the House version that would cut the maximum number of employees the DNFSB can have to 120 full-time employees beginning Oct. 1, 2015. Currently, the Board has an employee limit of 150 employees, and is set to have a total of 120 employees by the end of this fiscal year.
